CHAPTER VII.

"How does your ankle feel this morning?" "Better--much better, thank you. In a day or two it will be quite strong again." Miss Lefroy is seated in a moldy old summer-house at a corner of the farm-house garden, shelling a dish of peas, little Emma Higgins, her landlady's youngest but two, helping her with zealous dirty fingers. Unable any longer to bear the horsehair hardness of the parlor sofa and the stuffiness of the house, she has escaped hither, heedless of her aunt's protestations. Mr. Armstrong stands leaning…