-sleeves, his scant locks brushed carefully over his bald spot,
gazed at her with placid satisfaction. He was thoroughly accustomed
to having Abby wait upon his appetite.

"I got to get down to the store kind of early this morning, Abby," he
observed, frowning slightly at his empty plate.

"I'll have 'em for you in two shakes of a lamb's tail, papa," soothed
Mrs. Daggett, to whom the above remark had come to signify not merely
a statement of fact, but a gentle reprimand. "I know you like 'em
good and hot; and cold buckwheat cakes certainly is about th' meanest
vict'als.... There!"

And she transferred a neat pile of the delicate, crisp rounds from
the griddle to her husband's plate with a skill born of long
practice.

"About that furnitur'," remarked Mr. Daggett, gazing thoughtfully at
the golden stream of sweetness, stolen from leaf and branch of the
big sugar maples behind the house to supply the pewter syrup-jug he
suspended above his cakes, "I guess it's a fact she wants it, all
right."

"I should think she'd rather have new furniture; Henry, they do say
the house is going to be handsome. But you say she wants the old
stuff? Ain't that queer, for anybody with means."

"Well, that Orr girl beats me," Mr. Daggett acknowledged handsomely.
"She seems kind of soft an' easy, when you talk to her; but she's got
ideas of her own; an' you can't no more talk 'em out of her--"

"Why should you try to talk 'em out of her, papa?" inquired Mrs.
Daggett mildly. "Mebbe her ideas is all right; and anyhow, s'long as
she's paying out good money--"

"Oh, she'll pay! she'll pay!" said Mr. Daggett, with a large gesture.
"Ain't no doubt about her paying for what she wants."

He shoved his plate aside, and tipped back in his chair with a heavy
yawn.

"She's asked me to see about the wall paper, Abby," he continued,
bringing down his chair with a resounding thump of its sturdy legs.
"And she's got the most outlandish notions about it; asked me could I
match up what was on the walls."

"Match it up? Why, ain't th' paper all moldered away, Henry, with the
damp an' all?"

"'Course it is, Abby; but she says she wants to restore the
house--fix it up just as 'twas. She says that's th' correct thing to
do. 'Why, shucks!' I sez, 'the wall papers they're gettin' out now is
a lot handsomer than them old style papers. You don't want no old
stuff like that,' I sez. But, I swan! you can't tell that girl
nothing, for all she seems so mil