thusiasm that never long deserted him. He raised
his hand, clenched it and smote it energetically against the smoky
panel over the fireplace.

"The time is come," said he; "with such a treasure at command, it were
folly to be a poor man any longer. Tomorrow morning I will begin with
the garret, nor desist till I have torn the house down."

Deep in the chimney-corner, like a witch in a dark cavern, sat a
little old woman mending one of the two pairs of stockings wherewith
Peter Goldthwaite kept his toes from being frost-bitten. As the feet
were ragged past all darning, she had cut pieces out of a cast-off
flannel petticoat to make new soles. Tabitha Porter was an old maid
upward of sixty years of age, fifty-five of which she had sat in that
same chimney-corner, such being the length of time since Peter's
grandfather had taken her from the almshouse. She had no friend but
Peter, nor Peter any friend but Tabitha; so long as Peter might have a
shelter for his own head, Tabitha would know where to shelter hers,
or, being homeless elsewhere, she would take her master by the hand
and bring him to her native home, the almshouse. Should it ever be
necessary, she loved him well enough to feed him with her last morsel
and clothe him with her under-petticoat. But Tabitha was a queer old
woman, and, though never infected with Peter's flightiness, had become
so accustomed to his freaks and follies that she viewed them all as
matters of course. Hearing him threaten to tear the house down, she
looked quietly up from her work.

"Best leave the kitchen till the last, Mr. Peter," said she.

"The sooner we have it all down, the better," said Peter Goldthwaite.
"I am tired to death of living in this cold, dark, windy, smoky,
creaking, groaning, dismal old house. I shall feel like a younger man
when we get into my splendid brick mansion, as, please Heaven, we
shall by this time next autumn. You shall have a room on the sunny
side, old Tabby, finished and furnished as best may suit your own
notions."

"I should like it pretty much such a room as this kitchen," answered
Tabitha. "It will never be like home to me till the chimney-corner
gets as black with smoke as this, and that won't be these hundred
years. How much do you mean to lay out on the house, Mr. Peter?"

"What is that to the purpose?" exclaimed Peter, loftily. "Did not my
great-grand-uncle, Peter Goldthwaite, who died seventy years ago, and
whose namesake I am, leave treasure