This done, she filled a great glass bowl with purple-fringed
asters and long, gleaming sprays of golden-rod, and setting it in the
middle of the table, stood back with her head a little on one side and
surveyed the general effect.
"Good!" was her final comment; "very good! And now for my own part."
She gathered in her apron the branches first selected, and carried them
up to her own room, where she proceeded to strip off the leaves and to
fashion them into long garlands. As her busy fingers worked, her
thoughts flew hither and thither, bringing back the memories of the past
few days. Now she stood in the kitchen, pistol in hand, facing the
rascal Simon Hartley; and she laughed to think how he had shaken and
cowered before the empty weapon. Now she was in the vault of the ruined
mill, with a thousand horrors of darkness pressing on her, and only the
tiny spark of light in her lantern to keep off the black and shapeless
monsters. Now she thought of the kind farmer, with a throb of pity, as
she recalled the hopeless sadness of his face the night before. Just the
very night before, only a few hours; and now how different everything
was! Her heart gave a little happy thrill to think that she, Hilda, the
"city gal," had been able to help these dear friends in their trouble.
They loved her already, she knew that; they would love her more now. Ah!
and they would miss her all the more, now that she must leave them so
soon.
Then, like a flash, her thoughts reverted to the plan she had been
revolving in her mind two days before, before all these strange things
had happened.
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