child. She and her mother had lived now for two years at Braeside,
a lovely country place which they had come to look on as home.
Hildegarde was always happy, and was unconscious of any want in
her life; but her mother often longed for another daughter, or a
pleasant girl in the neighbourhood, to be a companion for her dear
one. True, Hildegarde had one young friend, Hugh Allen, the ward
of Colonel Ferrers, their kind and eccentric neighbour; but Hugh,
though a darling, was a little boy, and could not "dovetail" into
a girl's life as another girl might. Perhaps Mrs. Grahame hardly
realized how completely she herself filled Hildegarde's idea of a
friend and companion. The daughter was enough for her; her own
life seemed full and running over with joy and work; but for the
child she wanted always more and more. So her hopes, as well as
Hildegarde's, rose high when she heard of the pleasant-looking
girls who had come to the next-door house. The house was a large,
old-fashioned one; less stately than Roseholme, Colonel Ferrers'
house; less home-like and comfortable, perhaps, than Braeside,--
but that might only be because it had been so long uninhabited,
Hildegarde thought,--yet still pleasant enough, with its tall
columns and broad piazza. The house was yellow, the columns white,
and the cheerful colours were set off by the dark trees, elms and
locusts, that bent over it and almost hid it from the road. A
smooth stretch of lawn lay between the house and the hedge,
through which Hildegarde and the Colonel had made their
observations: a good lawn for tennis, Hildegarde thought. How good
it would be to play tennis again! She had been longing for the
time when Hugh would be big enough to learn, or when Jack Ferrers,
her cousin, would come back from Germany. How surprised Jack would
be when she wrote him that the yellow house was inhabited. What
friends he might make of those two nice-looking boys, unless he