Hetty’s heart was full as she thanked John Kane for his kindness.  She had almost been afraid that he would break out into raptures and want to hug her as Mrs. Kane had done; but when she found him so cold and respectful a lump rose in her throat, and something seemed to tell her that as she had pushed away from her the love of these good honest people, she deserved to be as lonely and unloved as she was.

Fortunately it was quite dark when the cart passed through the village, so that no one noticed whom John Kane had got cowering down in his cart behind the logs of timber.  When he stopped at his own door his wife came out, and he said to her in a low voice: 

“Look you here, Anne, if I haven’t brought you home little Hetty a second time out of trouble.  Found her on the road I did, with her ankle sprained.  We’ll take her in for the present, and I’ll go to the Hall and tell the gentlefolks.”

Mrs. Kane had just been making ready her husband’s tea, and the fire was burning brightly in her tidy kitchen, making it look pretty and homelike.  She was greatly astonished at her husband’s news, and came to the cart at once, though with a soreness at heart, remembering her last meeting with Hetty, and thinking how little pleasure the child would find in this enforced visit to her early home.

“Now hurry away to the Hall and give the message,” said Mrs. Kane; “your tea will keep till you come back.  Little Miss Gray will be anxious to get home to those who are expecting her.”

“Oh, please let him take his tea first,” cried Hetty; “there will be no hurry to get me back.  I have been very naughty and everyone will be angry with me.  Please, Mr. Kane, take your tea before you go.”

John Kane smiled.  “Thank you, little maid; but you see the horses are wanting to go home to their stable.  And I’d rather finish all my work before I sit down.”

He went away and Hetty was left alone in the firelight with her first foster-mother.

“Perhaps you are hungry, little miss,” said Anne.  “You have had a long walk, maybe, with your dog.”

Scamp had curled himself up on the “settle” at Hetty’s feet.

Hetty felt a pang at the words “little miss,” but she knew it was her own pride that had brought this treatment upon her.  Perhaps Mrs. Kane had once loved her as Scamp did now; but of course she would never love her again.  At all events she was dear and good for taking Scamp in without a word of objection, and allowing him to rest himself comfortably at her fireside.

“I am dreadfully hungry,” said Hetty, in a low ashamed voice, and looking up at Mrs. Kane with serious eyes.  “I have not eaten anything to-day.  I sprained my ankle getting the berries, and they fell so far away I could not pick them up.”

“Not eaten to-day?  What,—­no breakfast even?”

“No,” said Hetty.  “I was bad in the morning, or I should have got some.  At least they said I was bad, but I did not feel it.”