nated as Tommy
and Dolly.

Mrs. Gibson consented to let her second floor for a period of four
months, and to supply them with meals. The price was fixed upon, and
Quincy knew he had been unusually lucky in securing so desirable a
location at such a reasonable price.

There were three rooms, one a large front room, with a view of the
harbor, and back of it two sleeping rooms, looking out upon a large
garden at the rear of the house. Quincy mentally surveyed the large room
and marked the places with a piece of chalk upon the carpet where the
piano and the bookcase were to go. Then he decided that the room needed
a lounge and a desk with all necessary fixtures and stationery for Rosa
to work at. There were some stiff-backed chairs in the room, but he
concluded that a low easy-chair, like the one Alice had at home, and a
couple of wicker rocking chairs, which would be cool and comfortable
during the hot summer days, were absolutely essential.

He then returned to Boston, hired an upright piano and purchased the
other articles, including a comfortable office-chair to go with the
desk. He was so afraid that he would forget some article of stationery
that he made a list and checked it off. But this did not satisfy him.
He spent a whole morning in different stationery stores looking over
their stocks to make sure that he had omitted nothing. The goods were
packed and shipped by express to Mrs. Thomas Gibson, Nantucket, Mass.
Then, and not till then, did Quincy seek his aunt's residence with the
intelligence that the nest was builded and ready for the birds. When he
informed the ladies that everything was ready for their reception at
their summer home, Aunt Ella said that their departure would have to be
delayed for a few days, as the delinquent dressmakers had failed to
deliver certain articles of wearing apparel. This argument was, of
course, unanswerable, and Quincy devoted the time to visiting the
wholesale grocers, as he had promised Strout that he would do, and to
buying and shipping a long list of books that Miss Very informed him
Miss Pettengill needed for her work. He learned that during his absence
the proofs of The Man Without a Tongue had been brought over by Mr.
Ernst and read and corrected, Aunt Ella taking Quincy's place as reader.

At last all was ready, and on the tenth of May a party of three ladies
and one gentleman was driven to the station in time for the one o'clock
train. They had lunched early and the