ookies and cheese and butter."

Before long we had supper ready and we did full justice to the absent
Hannah's excellent cheer. After all, it was quite nice to sit down
once more to a well-appointed table and eat in civilized fashion.

Then we washed up all the dishes and made everything snug and tidy. I
shall never be sufficiently thankful that we did so.

Kate piloted me upstairs to the spare room.

"This is fixed up much nicer than it was when I was here before," she
said, looking around. "Of course, Hannah and Ted were just starting
out then and they had to be economical. They must have prospered, to
be able to afford such furniture as this. Well, turn in, Phil. Won't
it be rather jolly to sleep between sheets once more?"

We slept long and soundly until half-past eight the next morning; and
dear knows if we would have wakened then of our own accord. But I
heard somebody saying in a very harsh, gruff voice, "Here, you two,
wake up! I want to know what this means."

We two did wake up, promptly and effectually. I never wakened up so
thoroughly in my life before. Standing in our room were three people,
one of them a man. He was a big, grey-haired man with a bushy black
beard and an angry scowl. Beside him was a woman--a tall, thin,
angular personage with red hair and an indescribable bonnet. She
looked even crosser and more amazed than the man, if that were
possible. In the background was another woman--a tiny old lady who
must have been at least eighty. She was, in spite of her tininess, a
very striking-looking personage; she was dressed all in black, and had
snow-white hair, a dead-white face, and snapping, vivid, coal-black
eyes. She looked as amazed as the other two, but she didn't look
cross.

I knew something must be wrong--fearfully wrong--but I didn't know
what. Even in my confusion, I found time to think that if that
disagreeable-looking red-haired woman was Hannah Brewster, Kate must
have had a queer taste in school friends. Then the man said, more
gruffly than ever, "Come now. Who are you and what business have you
here?"

Kate raised herself on one elbow. She looked very wild. I heard the
old black-and-white lady in the background chuckle to herself.

"Isn't this Theodore Brewster's place?" gasped Kate.

"No," said the big woman, speaking for the first time. "This place
belongs to us. We bought it from the Brewsters in the spring. They
moved over to Black River Forks. Our name is Chapman."

P