Then she looked round with flaming cheeks, to see if her
scream had been heard by the hay-makers. No, they were far away, and
too busy to take heed of her. But the charm was broken. Queen Hildegarde
had plenty of courage of a certain sort, but she could _not_ face a
spider. The golden throne had become a "siege perilous," and she
abdicated in favor of the grasshopper and his black and horrent visitor.
What should she do now? The charm of the morning had made her idle and
drowsy, and she did not feel like going home to help Nurse Lucy in
making the butter, though she often did so with right good-will. She
looked dreamily around, her eyes wandering here and there over the great
meadow and the neat stone walls which bounded it. Presently she spied
the chimneys and part of the red roof of a little cottage which peeped
from a thick clump of trees just beyond the wall. Who lived in that
cottage, Hilda wondered. Why should she not go and see? She was very
thirsty, and there she might get a glass of water. Oh! perhaps it was
Bubble's cottage, where he and his mother and his sister Pink lived. Now
she thought of it, Bubble had told her that he lived "over beyont the
ten-acre lot;" of course this must be the place. Slowly she walked
across the meadow and climbed the wall, wondering a good deal about the
people whom she was going to see. She had often meant to ask Bubble more
about his sister with the queer name; but the lesson-hour was so short,
and there were always so many questions for Bubble to ask and for her to
answer besides the regular lesson, that she always forgot it till too
late.
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