At this moment a well-known brown bonnet was seen bobbing apologetically up the drive; the Widow Lankton had been making frantic efforts to catch Hildegarde’s eye, and now succeeding, began a series of crab-like bows.

“Oh!” cried Hildegarde, eagerly, “there is Mrs. Lankton, and she will know all about it.”

“Yes,” chimed in the children, in every variety of shrill treble.  “Widder Lankton, she’ll know all about it, sure!”

Mrs. Lankton was surrounded in a moment, and brought up on the piazza.  Here she sat, turning her head from side to side, like a lean and pensive parrot, and struggling to get her breath.

“It’s ketched me!” she said, faintly, in reply to the girls’ questions.  “Miss Grahame, my dear, it’s ketched me in my right side, and I like t’ ha’ died on your thrishold.  Yes, my dear,” she nodded her head many times, and repeated with unction, “I like t’ ha’ died on your thrishold.”

“Oh, I am so sorry, Mrs. Lankton!” said Hildegarde, soothingly, while she quieted with a look Bell’s horrified anxiety.

“I think you will be able to go in and get a cup of tea presently, won’t you?  And that will take away the pain, I hope.”

Mrs. Lankton’s countenance assumed a repressed cheerfulness.  “You may be right, dear!” she said.  “I shouldn’t go to contradict your blessed mother’s darter, not if she told me to get a hull supper, let alone a cup o’ tea, as is warming to the innards, let him deny it who will.  There!  I feel it a leetle better now a’ready,” she announced.  “Ah, it’s a blessed privilege you have, Miss Grahame!”

Without stopping to analyze these remarks too closely, Hildegarde said a few more soothing words, and then went straight to the matter in hand.

“Mrs. Lankton, can you tell us anything about a game the children have been playing, the game of ‘The Highland Gates?’ We are very much interested in it, Miss Merryweather and I,—­this is Miss Merryweather,—­and we want to know what it means.”

“To be sure, my dear!” cried the Widow Lankton. “’The Highland Gates to Die.’  Dear me, yes! if ever a person could tell you—­and Miss Bellflower, is it?  Ah! she looks rugged, now; don’t she? and livin’ in the old Shannon house, too.  ’T is dretful onhealthy, they say, the Shannon house; but havin’ a rugged start, you see, you may weather it a consid’able time, dearie, and be a comfort to them as has you while they has you.  My Philena, her cheeks was just like yours, like two pinies.  And where is she now?  Ah!  I’ve seen trouble, Miss Bellwether.  Miss Grahame here can tell you of some of the trouble I’ve seen, though she don’t know not a quarter part of it.”

“Oh yes, Mrs. Lankton,” said Hildegarde, with what seemed to wondering Bell rather a scant measure of sympathy; “Miss Merryweather shall hear all about it, surely.  But will you tell us now about the game, please?  We want to know so very much!”