close beside him while he took a match from his waistcoat pocket
and gave it to her.

"I won't have you leavin' matches layin' all about the house," he
commanded; "mice'll get at 'em, and set us afire. You can make up some
lamplighters out of old letters and things; there's a lot o' stuff
that might be used up. Seems to me lamplighters is gone out o'
fashion; they come in very handy."

Lizzie did not answer, which was a disappointment.

"Here, you take these I've got in my pocket, and that'll remind me to
buy some at the store," he ended. But Lizzie did not come to take
them, and when she had waited a moment, and turned up the lamp
carefully, she put it on the table by her mother, and went out of the
room. The father and mother heard her going upstairs.

"I do hope she won't stay up there in the cold," said Mrs. Packer in
an outburst of anxiety.

"What's she sulkin' about now?" demanded the father, tipping his chair
down emphatically on all four legs. The timid woman mustered all her
bravery.

"Why, when we saw Mr. Ferris out there talkin' with you, we were
frightened for fear he was tryin' to persuade you about the big pines.
Poor Lizzie got all worked up; she took on and cried like a baby when
we saw him go off chucklin' and you stayed out so long. She can't bear
the thought o' touchin' 'em. And then when you come in and spoke about
the selec'men, we guessed we was all wrong. Perhaps Lizzie feels bad
about that now. I own I had hard feelin's toward you myself, John."
She came toward him with her mixing-spoon in her hand; her face was
lovely and hopeful. "You see, they've been such landmarks, John," she
said, "and our Lizzie's got more feelin' about 'em than anybody. She
was always playin' around 'em when she was little; and now there's so
much talk about the fishin' folks countin' on 'em to get in by the
short channel in bad weather, and she don't want you blamed."

"You'd ought to set her to work, and learnt her head to save her
heels," said John Packer, grumbling; and the pale little woman gave a
heavy sigh, and went back to her work again. "That's why she ain't no
good now--playin' out all the time when other girls was made to work.
Broke you all down, savin' her," he ended in an aggrieved tone.

"John, 't ain't true, is it?" She faced him again in a way that made
him quail; his wife was never disrespectful, but she sometimes faced
every danger to save him from his own foolishness. "Don't you go and
do a