irresistible temptation to gaze about him.

The walls of the kitchen were low; but in the newcomer's eyes this was
an added attraction, because it gave to the room such an hospitable
appearance. The floor was more cleanly than any table he had ever
seen; the bricks of the fireplace, at one side of which stood a small
cook-stove, were as red as if newly painted; while on the dresser and
the mantel across the broad chimney were tin dishes that shone like
newly polished silver.

A large rocking-chair, a couch covered with chintz, and half a dozen
straight-backed, spider-legged chairs were ranged methodically along
the sides of the room, while in the centre of the floor, so placed
that the fresh morning breeze which entered by the door would blow
straight across it to the window shaded by lilac bushes, was a table
covered with a snowy cloth.

"Well, if this is a farmer's house I wouldn't wonder if a good bit of
Pip Smith's yarn was true," Seth muttered to himself, as he turned
toward the sink, over which hung a towel so white that he could hardly
believe he would be allowed to dry his face and hands with it.

He was alone in the kitchen. Snip, having had a most satisfactory
breakfast of what he must have believed was real cream, had run out of
doors to chase a leaf blown by the wind, and Gladys was close behind,
alternately urging him in the pursuit, and showering praises upon "the
sweetest dog that ever lived."

"Folks that live like this must be mighty rich," Seth thought, as he
plunged his face into a basin of clear water. "It ain't likely Snip
an' me will strike it so soft again, an' I expect he'll be terrible
sorry to leave. I reckon it'll be all right to hang 'round an hour or
so, an' then we must get out lively. I wonder if that little bit of a
woman expects I'll pay for breakfast?"

CHAPTER III.

AUNT HANNAH.

WITH a broken comb, which he used upon Snip's hair as well as his own,
Seth concluded his toilet, and, neither the little woman nor the girl
having returned to the house, stood in the doorway gazing out upon as
peaceful a scene as a boy pursued by the officers of the law could
well desire to see.

On either hand ran the dusty road, not unlike a yellow ribbon upon a
cloth of green, and bordering it here and there were clumps of bushes
or groves of pine or of oak, as if planted for the especial purpose of
affording to the weary traveller a screen from the blinding sun.

The little farmhous