“I ain’t going to tell you anything sad,” she said under her breath.  “It’s best forgot.  This was their room; ain’t it nice an’ cheerful?  I like a southwest room myself.  And ’tain’t a bit warm here, what with the breeze sweeping in at the four big windows and smelling sweet of clover an’ locust blooms.  And ain’t it lucky them trees didn’t get blown over last winter?”

She turned abruptly toward the girl.

“Was you thinking of sleeping in this room, dearie?  It used to have blue and white paper on it, and white paint as fresh as milk.  It’d be nice and pleasant for a young lady, I should think.”

Lydia shook her head.

“Not,” she said slowly, “if it was his room.  I think I’d rather—­which was the little girl’s room?  You said there was a child?”

“Now, I’m real sorry you feel that way,” sympathized Mrs. Daggett, “but I don’t know as I blame you, the way folks talk.  You’d think they’d have forgot all about it by now, wouldn’t you?  But land! it does seem as if bad thoughts and mean thoughts, and like that, was possessed to fasten right on to folks; and you can’t seem to shake ’em off, no more than them spiteful little stick-tights that get all over your clo’es....  This room right next belonged to their baby.  Let me see; she must have been about three and a half or four years old when they took her away.  See, there’s a door in between, so Mrs. Bolton could get to her quick in the night.  I used to be that way, too, with my children....  You know we lost our two little girls that same winter, three and five, they were.  But I know I wanted ’em right where I could hear ’em if they asked for a drink of water, or like that, in the night.  Folks has a great notion now-a-days of putting their babies off by themselves and letting them cry it out, as they say.  But I couldn’t ever do that; and Mrs. Andrew Bolton she wa’n’t that kind of a parent, either—­ I don’t know as they ought to be called mothers.  No, she was more like me—­liked to tuck the blankets around her baby in the middle of th’ night an’ pat her down all warm and nice.  I’ve often wondered what became of that poor little orphan child.  We never heard.  Like enough she died.  I shouldn’t wonder.”

And Mrs. Daggett wiped the ready tears from her eyes.

“But I guess you’ll think I’m a real old Aunty Doleful, going on this way,” she made haste to add.

“There’s plenty of folks in Brookville as ’ll tell you how stuck-up an’ stylish Mrs. Andrew Bolton was, always dressed in silk of an afternoon and driving out with a two-horse team, an’ keeping two hired girls constant, besides a man to work in her flower garden and another for the barn.  But of course she supposed they were really rich and could afford it. He never let on to her, after things begun to go to pieces; and folks blamed her for it, afterwards.  Her heart was weak, and he knew it, all along.  And then I suppose he