e had begun.

The room was nice enough for breakfast when we left it over night.
There was nothing straying about; the tea-kettle and the tin boiler
were filled,--father did that just before he locked up the house; we
had only to draw up the window-shades, and let the sweet light in, in
the morning.

Stephen had put a basket of wood and kindlings ready for Mrs. Dunikin
in the kitchen below, and the key of the lower door had been left on a
beam in the woodshed, by agreement. By the time we came down stairs
Mrs. Dunikin had a steaming boiler full of clothes, and had done
nearly two of her five hours' work. We should hand her her breakfast
on a little tray, when the time came, at the stair-head; and she would
bring up her cup and plate again while we were clearing away. We
should pay her twelve and a half cents an hour; she would scrub up all
below, go home to dinner, and come again to-morrow for five hours'
ironing. That was all there would be about Mrs. Dunikin.

Meanwhile, with a pair of gloves on, and a little plain-hemmed
three-cornered, dotted-muslin cap tied over her hair with a muslin bow
behind, mother had let down the ashes,--it isn't a bad thing to do
with a well-contrived stove,--and set the pan, to which we had a
duplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the
clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one
or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, shiny nut-coal. The
draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In these
five minutes the stove and the mantel were dusted, the hearth brushed
up, and there was neither chip nor mote to tell the tale. It was not
like an Irish fire, that reaches out into the middle of the room with
its volcanic margin of cinders and ashes.

Then--that Monday morning--we had brewis to make, a little buttered
toast to do, and some eggs to scramble. The bright coffee-pot got its
ration of fragrant, beaten paste,--the brown ground kernels mixed with
an egg,--and stood waiting for its drink of boiling water. The two
frying-pans came forth; one was set on with the milk for the brewis,
into which, when it boiled up white and drifting, went the sweet fresh
butter, and the salt, each in plentiful proportion;--"one can give
one's self _carte-blancher_," Barbara said, "than it will do to give a
girl";--and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a white
porcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, t