Hildegarde could not speak.  The thought of anything so dreadful, so overwhelming as this, coming so suddenly, too, upon her, seemed to take away her usually ready speech, and she was dumb, gazing at the cheerful face before her with wide eyes of pity and wonderment.  But Pink Chirk did not like to be pitied, as a rule; and she almost laughed at her visitor’s horror-stricken face.

“You mustn’t look so!” she cried.  “It’s very kind of you to be sorry, but it isn’t as if I were really ill, you know.  I can almost stand on one foot,—­that is, I can bear enough weight on it to get from my bed to my chair without help.  That is a great thing!  And then when I am once in my chair, why I can go almost anywhere.  Farmer Hartley gave me this chair,” she added, looking down at it, and patting the arm tenderly, as if it were a living friend; “isn’t it a beauty?”

It was a pretty chair, made of cherry wood, with cushions of gay-flowered chintz; and Hilda, finding her voice again, praised it warmly.  “This is its summer dress,” said Pink, her eyes sparkling with pleasure.  “Underneath, the cushions are covered with soft crimson cloth, oh, so pretty, and so warm-looking!  I am always glad when it’s time to take the chintz covers off.  And yet I am always glad to put them on again,” she added, “for the chintz is pretty too, I think:  and besides, I know then that summer is really come.”

“You like summer best?” asked Hilda.

“Oh, yes!” she replied.  “In winter, of course, I can’t go out; and sometimes it seems a little long, when Bubble is away all day,—­not very, you know, but just a little.  But in summer, oh, then I am so happy!  I can go all round the place by myself, and sit out in the garden, and feed the chickens, and take care of the flowers.  And then on Sunday Bubble always gives me a good ride along the road.  My chair moves very easily,—­only see!” She gave a little push, and propelled herself half way across the little room.

At this moment the inner door opened, and Mrs. Chirk appeared,—­a slender, anxious-looking woman, with hair prematurely gray.  She greeted Hilda with nervous cordiality, and thanked her earnestly for her kindness to Zerubbabel.  “He ain’t the same boy, Miss Graham,” she said, “sence you begun givin’ him lessons.  He used to fret and worrit ’cause there warn’t no school, and he couldn’t ha’ gone to it if there was.  Pinkrosia learned him what she could; but we hain’t many books, you see.  But now! why that boy comes into the house singin’ and spoutin’ poetry at the top of his lungs,—­jest as happy as a kitten with a spool.  What was that he was shoutin’ this mornin’, Pinkrosia, when he scairt the old black hen nigh to death?”

“‘Charge for the golden lilies!  Upon them with the lance!’” murmured Pink, with a smile.