and Mrs. Hop's quilts
above, with the overcoats in reserve--the Sturgises considered
themselves quite luxurious, after last night's shift at sleep.

"What care we if the beds don't come?" Ken said. "We could live this way
all summer. Let them perish untended in the trolley freight-house."

But when Kirk was asleep, the note of the conversation dropped. Ken and
Felicia talked till late into the night, in earnest undertones, of ways
and means and the needs of the old house.

And slowly, slowly, all the wheels did begin to turn together. Some of
the freight came,--notably the beds,--after a week of waiting. Ken and
Hop carried them upstairs and set them up, with much toil. Ken chopped
down two dead apple-trees, and filled the shed with substantial fuel.
The Asquam Market would deliver out Winterbottom Road after May first.
Trunks came, with old clothes, and Braille books and other books--and
things that Felicia had not been able to leave behind at the last
moment. Eventually, came a table, and the Sturgises set their posied
plates upon it, and lighted their two candles stuck in saucers, and
proclaimed themselves ready to entertain.

"And," thought Felicia, pausing at the kitchen door, "what a difference
it does make!"

Firelight and candle-light wrought together their gracious spell on the
old room. The tin spoons gleamed like silver, the big brown crash towel
that Ken had jokingly laid across the table looked quite like a runner.
The light ran and glowed on the white-plastered ceiling and the heavy
beams; it flung a mellow aureole about Kirk, who was very carefully
arranging three tumblers on the table.

The two candle-flames swayed suddenly and straightened, as Ken opened
the outer door and came in.

He too, paused, looking at the little oasis in the dark, silent house.

"We're beginning," he said, "to make friends with the glum old place."

There was much to be done. The rusty nails were pulled out, and others
substituted in places where things could really be hung on them--notably
in the kitchen, where they supported Felicia's pots and pans in neatly
ordered rows. The burdocks disappeared, the shutters were persuaded not
to squeak, the few pieces of furniture from home were settled in places
where they would look largest. Yes, the house began to be friendly. The
rooms were not, after all, so enormous as Felicia had thought. The
furniture made them look much smaller. At the Asquam Utility Emporium,
Felicia pu