y, we can use it."

"Probably the older and shakier it is, the more valuable when it has been
restored," suggested Mrs. Burnside.

"I should say so," declared Jarvis, with emphasis. "You should have heard
the Neil Chases rave over some of theirs. Neil found a sideboard in an
old cabin down South; it had the doors nailed on with strips of leather;
they kept corn meal and molasses in it. He wouldn't take five hundred
dollars for it now."

"I don't imagine," said Uncle Timothy, cautiously, "that any of my things
are as valuable as that, so don't get your expectations too high, Sally.
But they may help you in the matter of supplying chairs and beds for your
friends. I take it this will be a hospitable homestead, when Sally is
mistress of it."

"How could it help being hospitable," cried Sally, happily, "with friends
like ours for guests?"

"Let's make a circle on the hearth, for good luck," proposed Josephine.

Beckoning, she led the way toward the fireplace, where the flames of
the big logs, which had leaped and danced there all the evening,
carefully fed by Bob from time to time, had now died down into a mass
of brilliant coals.

On either side the sheaves of yellow corn-stalks stood like sentinels,
and above a row of jack-o'-lanterns, whose candles had been renewed when
they threatened to burn low, looked cheerfully down from the high
chimney-piece.

"All join hands," commanded Josephine, "and sing 'Auld Lang Syne.'"

"Will you let such new acquaintances join in that song?" asked Mrs.
Ferry, as Alec, who was next her, caught her hand in obedience to orders.

"Of course we will. We hope that time will make you old friends,"
answered Uncle Timothy, gallantly, stretching out his hand, as he stood
next upon her other side.

It is rather curious how, in any such grouping, certain combinations come
about. Neither Jarvis Burnside nor Donald Ferry seemed to make any abrupt
moves, and there certainly was a moment when it might have seemed the
natural thing that Jarvis should grasp Uncle Timothy's hand, Ferry seize
upon Bob's. But so it did not turn out.

When the circle began slowly to revolve before the fire, one of Sally's
hands was in Jarvis's, the other in that of the neighbour who could chop
down trees as easily as he could address audiences, and whose hand,
therefore, possessed a warm and even grip which suggested both
friendliness and strength. Upon Donald Ferry's farther side was
Josephine, and Max clasped