o other--not's I knows on. What o' that?"

"Well, I was a-thinkin' that, that bein' so, an' Jim an' Sairy
thinkin' so much o' 'nother, it wa'n't o' no use fur them ter keep
waitin' along year eout an' year in fur a chance tu keep house by
'emselves. They'd best git married right off an' come an' live along
o' us."

"W'y, ole woman!"

"W'y, mother!"

"Yay; I hear both on ye," said the gentle old mother with a half
smile. "I s'posed likely ye'd think strange on't at fust; but ye
h'ain't no need ter, fur it's a sens'ble thing ter dew, an' yell see't
so when ye've thought on't a spell: see if ye don't."

So well was the proposal liked that very soon the simple ceremony of
the Friends made James and Sarah husband and wife; and for a while all
seemed happiness in the humble cottage on the cliff--cottage so humble
that it scarcely deserved even that lowly name.

Sarah Macy's father owned one of the largest dwellings on Nantucket--a
two-story "double house" with two rooms on each side of a broad hall
running through the house from front to rear. On one side of this hall
was the "best bedroom," ghostly with tightly-closed white shutters
and long white dimity curtains to the "four-poster" and shining white
sanded floor, and the "best-room," terrible in its grandeur of cold
white walls, straight hard sofa, "spider-legged" table, grenadier-like
chairs and striped woolen carpet underlaid with straw. In the rear, on
the other side of the hall, was the kitchen with its big brick oven,
its yawning fireplace overhung with corpulent iron pots or shining
copper kettles depending from numerous gallows-like cranes; with its
glittering copper, brass and pewter utensils arrayed on snowy-shelves;
with its spotless tables, Its freshly-sanded floor and its
heavily-beamed, whitewashed ceiling, from which hung many a bunch of
savory herbs or string of red pepper-pods or bunch of seed-corn, or
perhaps even a round-backed ham, to get a little browner in the smoke
that would sometimes pour out from the half-ignited mass of peat. In
front of the kitchen was the "living-room," in one corner of which
stood a carved high-post bedstead--glory of the Macys and envy of
their neighbors--with its curtains of big figured chintz, brown
sunflowers sprawling over a white ground, drawn aside in the daytime
to display the marvelous patchwork of the quilt beneath. Fuel was
scarce even then on the sandy isle; and economy compelled Mr. and
Mrs. Macy to make us