"
"Don't! It's dark up there," shuddered Lizzie.
"Dark as midnight," agreed Anne; "heavy dark. You can feel it. It's the
only place I used to be afraid of. I have to make myself go there."
"Why?" asked Lizzie.
"I--don't just know--but I do. You wait here." She came back a little
later, dusty, cobwebby, flushed. "I knew there wasn't anything there--in
the dark more'n the light," she said. "I know it, and still I just have
to make myself not be scared. Whew! It's hot up there. Lizzie, let's go
in the parlor. I've not been in there yet."
"No," objected Lizzie. "The little old lady's in there--or in the room
back of it. Them's her rooms."
"The little old lady? who is she?" inquired Anne.
"She's the one I take breakfast and dinner and supper to. She comes here
in the summer and she sits in there and rocks and reads."
"Doesn't she ever go out?" Anne wanted to know.
"Oh, yes! she walks in the yard or garden every day. You just ain't
happened to see her. We've played away from the house so much."
"What kind of looking lady is she?" asked Anne.
"Oh, she's just a lady. Ma says she's mighty hotty. What's hotty, Anne?"
inquired Lizzie.
Haughty was a new word to Anne.
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