too, I've no doubt; but I should like to see myself
askin' him to learn me. No, I mean, as I never knew nobody that I'd
ask. La! there's folks enough that knows. Only I never had no chances
for them things."

"I could shew you where Switzerland is, if you had a map," said Norton.

"I guess I know as much as that myself," said the housekeeper quietly,
opening the stove door again for a peep at the oven. "But what does
_that_ tell me? I see a little spot o' paper painted green, and a big
spot along side of it painted some other colour; and the map is all
spots; and somebody tells me that little green spot is Switzerland. And
I should like to know, how much wiser am I for that? That's paper and
green paint; but what I want to know is, where is the _place_."

"It's hard to tell," said Norton, so much amused that he forgot his
commission.

"Well, these folks come from Switzerland, you say. How did they come?"

"They came in a ship--part of the way."

"How fur in a ship?"

"Three thousand miles."

"Three thousand," repeated Miss Red wood. "When you get up there, I
don't know what miles mean, no more than if you spoke another language.
I understand a hundred miles. It's nigh that to New York."

"They came that hundred miles, over and above," said Norton.

"Well, how long now, does it take a ship to go that fur? Three thousand
miles."

"It depends on how fast the wind blows."

"The wind goes awful fast sometimes," said Miss Redwood. "When it goes
at that rate as will carry a chimney off a house, and pick up a tree by
the roots as I would a baby under my arm, seems to me a ship would
travel at a powerful speed."

"It would certainly, if there was nothing to hinder," said Norton; "but
at those times, you see, the wind picks up the water, and sends such
huge waves rolling about that it is not very safe to be where they can
give you a slap. Ships don't get along best at such times."

"Well, I'm thankful I'm not a sailor," said Miss Redwood. "I'd rather
stay home and know less. How many o' these folks o' yourn is ill?"

"All of them, pretty much," said Norton. "Two men and two women."

"Fever nagur?"

"No, 'tisn't that. I don't know what it is. The doctor is attending
them. He ordered beef tea to-day; and Matilda made some; but they seem
too ill to take it now they've got it."

Miss Redwood dropped her towel, with which she was just going to open
the oven again, and stood upright.

"Beef tea?" she echoed. "H