“And did Simon become—­a—­a gentleman?” asked Hilda, taking her own little lesson very meekly, in her desire to know more.

Farmer Hartley’s brow clouded instantly, and the smile vanished from his lips.  “Poor Simon!” he said, sadly.  “He might ha’ been anythin’ he liked, if he’d lived and—­been fortunate.”

“Simon Hartley is dead, Hilda dear,” interposed Dame Hartley, gently; “he died some years ago.  Will you have some of your own currants, my dear?—­Hilda has been helping me a great deal, Father,” she added, addressing her husband.  “I don’t know how I should have got all my currants picked without her help.”

“Has she so?” exclaimed the farmer, fixing his keen gray eyes on the girl.  “Waal! waal! to think o’ that!  Why, we sh’ll hev her milkin’ that cow soon, after all; hey, Huldy?”

Hildegarde looked up bravely, with a little smile.  “I will try,” she said, cheerfully, “if you will risk the milk, Farmer Hartley.”

The old farmer returned her smile with one so bright and kind and genial that somehow the ice bent, then cracked, and then broke.  The old Hilda shrank into so small a space that there was really very little left of her, and the new Hilda rose from table feeling that she had gained a new friend.

So it came to pass that about an hour later our heroine was walking beside the farmer on the way to the barnyard, talking merrily, and swinging the basket which she was going to fill with eggs.  “But how shall I find them,” she asked, “if the hens hide them away so carefully?”

“Oh, you’ll hear ’em scrattlin’ round!” replied the farmer.  “They’re gret fools, hens are,—­greter than folks, as a rule; an’ that is sayin’ a good deal.”

They crossed the great sunny barn-yard, and paused at the barn-door, while Hilda looked in with delight.  A broad floor, big enough for a ballroom, with towering walls of fragrant hay on either side reaching up to the rafters; great doors open at the farther end, showing a snatch of blue, radiant sky, and a lovely wood-road winding away into deep thickets of birch and linden; dusty, golden, cobwebby sunbeams slanting down through the little windows, and touching the tossed hay-piles into gold; and in the middle, hanging by iron chains from the great central beam, a swing, almost big enough for a giant,—­such was the barn at Hartley Farm; as pleasant a place, Hilda thought, as she had ever seen.

“Waal, Huldy, I’ll leave ye heer,” said the farmer; “ye kin find yer way home, I reckon.”

“Oh, yes, indeed!” said Hilda.  “But stop one moment, please, Farmer Hartley.  I want to know—­will you please—­may I teach Bubble Chirk a little?” The farmer gave a low whistle of surprise; but Hilda went on eagerly:  “I found him studying, this morning, while he was weeding the garden,—­oh! studying so hard, and yet not neglecting his work for a minute.  He seems a very bright boy, and it is a pity he should not have a good education.  Could you spare him, do you think, for an hour every day?” She stopped, while the farmer looked at her with a merry twinkle in his eye.