d possible gain, into
something that would "make a cat laugh"; but it really needs a chapter
to itself. You remember that Dr. Holmes says of certain majestic and
dignified trees that they ought to have a Christian name, like other
folks? The barn, in the same way, deserves more distinction than a
paragraph, but at this moment it was being used as a storeroom and was
merely awaiting its splendid destiny, quite unconscious of the future.
The Hamilton boys were no doubt as extravagant and thriftless as they
were insane, but the Careys sympathized with their extravagance and
thriftlessness and insanity so heartily, in this particular, that they
could hardly conceal their real feelings from Bill Harmon. Nothing could
so have accorded with their secret desires as the "fool changes" made by
the "crazy Hamilton boys"; light-hearted, irresponsible, and frivolous
changes that could never have been compassed by the Careys' slender
income. They had no money to purchase horse or cow or pig, and no man in
the family to take care of them if purchased; so the removal of stalls
and all the necessary appurtenances for the care of cattle was no source
of grief or loss to them. A good floor had been laid over the old one
and stained to a dark color; the ceiling, with its heavy hand-hewn
beams, was almost as fine as some old oak counterpart in an English
hall. Not a new board met the eye;--old weathered lumber everywhere,
even to the quaint settle-shaped benches that lined the room. There was
a place like an old-fashioned "tie-up" for musicians to play for a
country dance, or for tableaux and charades; in fine, there would be,
with the addition of Carey ideas here and there, provision for frolics
and diversions of any sort. You no sooner opened the door and peeped in,
though few of the Beulah villagers had ever been invited to do so by the
gay young Hamiltons, than your tongue spontaneously exclaimed: "What a
place for good times!"

"I shall 'come out' here," Nancy announced, as the three girls stood in
the centre of the floor, surrounded by bedsteads, tables, bureaus, and
stoves. "Julia, you can 'debut' where you like, but I shall 'come out'
here next summer!"

"You'll be only seventeen; you can't come out!" objected Julia
conventionally.

"Not in a drawing room, perhaps, but perfectly well in a barn. Even you
and Kitty, youthful as you will still be, can attend my coming out
party, in a barn!"

"It doesn't seem proper to think of giv