ched for the big wagon that was to
bring our household goods.

It came at last; and the novelty of seeing our old furniture settled in
new rooms kept us from being homesick. One after another they
appeared,--bedsteads, chairs, tables, and, to me most welcome of all,
the old mahogany secretary with brass-handled drawers, that had always
stood in the "front room" at home. With it came the barrel full of
books that had filled its shelves, and they took their places as
naturally as if they had always lived in this strange town.

There they all stood again side by side on their shelves, the dear,
dull, good old volumes that all my life I had tried in vain to take a
sincere Sabbath-day interest in,--Scott's Commentaries on the Bible,
Hervey's "Meditations," Young's "Night Thoughts," "Edwards on the
Affections," and the Writings of Baxter and Doddridge. Besides these,
there were bound volumes of the "Repository Tracts," which I had read
and re-read; and the delightfully miscellaneous "Evangelicana,"
containing an account of Gilbert Tennent's wonderful trance; also the
"History of the Spanish Inquisition," with some painfully realistic
illustrations; a German Dictionary, whose outlandish letters and words
I liked to puzzle myself over; and a descriptive History of Hamburg,
full of fine steel engravings--which last two or three volumes my
father had brought with him from the countries to which he had sailed
in his sea-faring days. A complete set of the "Missionary Herald",
unbound, filled the upper shelves.

Other familiar articles journeyed with us: the brass-headed shovel and
tongs, that it had been my especial task to keep bright; the two
card-tables (which were as unacquainted as ourselves with ace, face,
and trump); the two china mugs, with their eighteenth-century lady and
gentleman figurines curiosities brought from over the sea, and
reverently laid away by my mother with her choicest relics in the
secretary-desk; my father's miniature, painted in Antwerp, a treasure
only shown occasionally to us children as a holiday treat; and my
mother's easy-chair,--I should have felt as if I had lost her, had that
been left behind. The earliest unexpressed ambition of my infancy had
been to grow up and wear a cap, and sit in an easy-chair knitting and
look comfortable just as my mother did.

Filled up with these things, the little one-windowed sitting-room
easily caught the home feeling, and gave it back to us. Inanimate
Objects