sat with the deal bowl in her lap, turning and mincing
with the few last strokes the light, delicate dust of the pastry. The
sunshine--work and sunshine always go so blessedly together--poured
in, and filled the room up with life and glory.

"Why, this is the pleasantest room in all your house!" said Miss
Elizabeth.

"That is just what Ruth said it would be when we turned it into a
kitchen," said Barbara.

"You don't mean that this is really your kitchen!"

"I don't think we are quite sure what it is," replied Barbara,
laughing. "We either dine in our kitchen or kitch in our dining-room;
and I don't believe we have found out yet which it is!"

"You are wonderful people!"

"You ought to have belonged to the army, and lived in quarters," said
Mrs. Pennington. "Only you would have made your rooms so bewitching
you would have been always getting turned out."

"Turned out?"

"Yes; by the ranking family. That is the way they do. The major turns
out the captain, and the colonel the major. There's no rest for the
sole of your foot till you're a general."

Mrs. Holabird set her bowl on the table, and poured in the ice-water.
Then the golden dust, turned and cut lightly by the chopper, gathered
into a tender, mellow mass, and she lifted it out upon the board.
She shook out the scalded cloth, spread it upon the emptied bowl,
sprinkled it snowy-thick with flour, rolled out the crust with a free
quick movement, and laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbara
brought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them into
the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen
cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara
disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam
went up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabird
went into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never really
came to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbara
carried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth was
drawn on again, and there was nothing, but a low, comfortable bubble
in the chimney-corner to tell of house-wifery or dinner.

"I wish it had lasted longer," said Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid I
shall feel like company again now."

"I am ashamed to tell you what I came for," said Madam Pennington.
"It was to ask about a girl. Can I do anything with Winny Lafferty?"

"I wish you could," said Mrs. Holabird, benevolently.

"She