Grandma says I am
not like her at all, while old Hannah, the cook, when she feels
ill-natured and wishes to tease me, says I am the very image of Hester
Hamilton."
"And what if you are? What if you are?" eagerly rejoined old Hagar.
"Would you feel badly to know you looked like Hester?" and the old
woman bent anxiously forward to hear the answer: "Not for myself,
perhaps, provided Hester was handsome, for I think a good deal of
beauty, that's a fact; but it would annoy grandma terribly to have me
look like a servant. She might fancy I was Hester's daughter, for she
wonders every day where I get my low-bred ways, as she calls my liking
to sing and laugh and be natural."
"And s'posin' Hester was your mother, would you care?" persisted
Hagar.
"Of course I should," answered Maggie, her large eyes opening wide at
the strange question. "I wouldn't for the whole world be anybody
but Maggie Miller, just who I am. To be sure, I get awfully out of
patience with grandma and Mrs. Jeffrey for talking so much about birth
and blood and family, and all that sort of nonsense, but after all I
wouldn't for anything be poor and work as poor folks do."
"I'll never tell her, never," muttered Hagar; and Maggie continued:
"What a queer habit you have of talking to yourself. Did you always do
so?"
"Not always. It came upon me with the secret," Hagar answered
inadvertently; and eagerly catching at the last word, which to her
implied a world of romance and mystery, Maggie exclaimed: "The secret,
Hagar, the secret! If there's anything I delight in it's a secret!"
and, sliding down from the rude bench to the grass-plat at Hagar's
feet, she continued: "Tell it to me, Hagar, that's a dear old woman.
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