the other, Jane's chamber, and a room which she
usually kept locked. He had heard her there at night sometimes, for he
slept above it, and once or twice had seen the door open in the daytime,
and looked in. It held, he saw, better furniture than the rest of the
house: a homespun carpet of soft, grave colors, thick drab curtains, a
bedstead, one or two bookcases, filled and locked, of which Jane made as
little use, he was sure, as she could of the fowling-piece and patent
fishing-rod which he saw in one corner. There were no shams, no cheap
makeshifts in the Quaker's little house, in any part of it; but this
room was the essence of cleanness and comfort, Andy thought. He never
asked questions, however: some ingredient in his poor hodge-podge of a
brain keeping him always true to this hard test of good breeding. So
to-night, though he heard her until near eleven o'clock moving
restlessly about in this room, he hesitated until then, before he went
to speak to her.

"She's surely sick," he said, with a worried look, lighting his candle.
"Women are the Devil for nerves."

Coming to the open door, however, he found her only busy in rubbing the
furniture with a bit of chamois-skin. She looked up at him, her face
very red, and the look in her face that children have when going out for
a holiday.

"How does thee think it looks, Andy?" her voice strangely low and rapid.

He looked at her curiously.

"I'm makin' it ready, thee knows. Pull to this shutter for me, lad. A
good many years I've been makin' it ready"--

"You shiver so, ye'd better go to bed, Jane."

"Yes. Only the white valance is to put to the bed; I'm done
then,"--going on silently for a while.

"I've been so long at it,"--catching her breath. "Hard scrapin', the
first years. We'd only a lease on the place at first. It's ours now, an'
it's stocked, an'--Don't thee think the house is snug itself, Andrew?
Thee sees other houses. Is't home-like lookin'? Good for rest"--

"Yes, surely. What are you so anxious an' wild about, Jane? It's yer own
house."

"I'm not anxious,"--trying to calm herself. "Mine, is it, lad? All mine;
nobody sharin' in it."

She laughed. In all these years he had never heard her laugh before; it
was low and full-hearted,--a live, real laugh. Somehow, all comfort,
home, and frolic in the coming years were promised in it.

"Mine?" folding up her duster. "Well, lad, thee says so. Daily savin' of
the cents got it. Maybe thee thought me a