alls, wooden
cornices and beams, and wooden mantels with heads carved on the corners.
It seemed to them at first appallingly grand. Presently they observed the
bare wooden floors, the flag-bottomed chairs, and faded chintz cushions,
the row of old tin utensils, and plain, cheap crockery in the glass-doored
cupboard, and felt more at home.

"You know Aunt Emma said they were poor, too," said Draxy, answering her
own unspoken thought as well as her father's and mother's.

Reuben pushed his hair off his warm forehead and sighed.

"I suppose we might go up-stairs, mother," he said; "that's to be our
house, as I understand it"

Draxy bounded at the words. With flying steps she ascended the stairs and
opened the first door. She stood still on the threshold, unable to move
from astonishment. It was still light enough to see the room. Draxy began
to speak, but broke down utterly, and bursting out crying, threw herself
into the arms of her father who had just reached the top of the stairs.

"Oh, father, it's all fixed for a sitting-room! Father dear, I told you!"

This was something they had not dreamed of. They had understood the offer
to be merely of rooms in which they could live rent-free. In fact, that
had been Captain Melville's first intention. But his generous sailor's
heart revolted from the thought of stripping the rooms of furniture for
which he had no use. So Emma had rearranged the plain old-fashioned
things, and adding a few more which could be spared as well as not, had
fitted up a sitting-room and two bed-rooms with all that was needed for
comfort. Reuben and Jane and Draxy were all crying when Mrs. Carr came
back with her pitcher of smoking tea. Reuben tried to explain to her why
they were crying, but she interrupted him with,--

"Well, now, I understand it jest's if 'twas to me it'd all happened; an' I
think it's lucky after all that Mis' Melville wasn't here, for she's
dreadful easy upset if people take on. But now you drink your tea, and get
all settled down's quick's you can, for Captain Melville 'll be here any
minute now I expect, an' he don't like tantrums."

This frightened Draxy, and made a gloomy look come on Reuben's face. But
the fright and the gloom disappeared in one minute and forever when the
door burst open, and a red-faced, white-haired old man, utterly out of
breath, bounced into the room, and seizing Reuben by the hand gasped out,
puffing between the words like a steam-engine:--

"Wr