Emma Hender's face quite lit up with pleasure. "If it isn't too damp for you, I wish you would come down the garden with me and see what I think would be a good place to have a house." "I'd like to come," said Aunt Maggie warmly, only too glad to be friendly if Miss Hender would let her. "Shall we go now?" Down the garden they all trooped, for, of course, Margery must be in everything, and Charlie was more interested in ducks and fowls, or any other live creature, than he was in flowers or fruit. They examined the present poky fowl-house and run, and then they surveyed the land, and each one gave an opinion on the matter. "I think if we were to put the new house next to the old one it would be best, don't you?" said Aunt Emma. Aunt Maggie looked about her for a minute thoughtfully. "Well, no," she said at last. "I think, if it was mine, I should have a new house close there by the orchard, and give them a run that would go right through the hedge, so that they could have the run of the orchard too. They would enjoy that, and it would keep them healthy, and they could pick up so much food you wouldn't need to feed them more than twice a day. What do you think about it?" Miss Hender looked thoughtful for a minute. "Yes, I think it might be a good plan," she said. She did not speak very heartily, but it was a wonderful change for her to agree at all with any suggestion made by Mrs. Langley. "But there," she sighed, dropping back into her usual melancholy manner, "what does it matter? I don't suppose it will ever be my lot to get it. I don't see where the money is to come from," and she returned to the house with all the air of a much injured woman. That afternoon, as Tom and Bella went round shutting up the hot-beds, Tom confided a new plan he had formed. "I am going to learn carpentering this winter," he said eagerly, "just plain carpentering, you know. I want to see if we can't build Aunt Emma her fowl-house by the spring. I'm sure she'd make it pay, and I believe she'd be better-tempered if she'd got something of her own to look after, and earn a little by." "I believe she would," said Bella soberly. "I know I was." It was only a few days later than this that William Hender came back once more to the house he had been absent from for a quarter of a year. The day before Christmas Eve was fixed on for his return, and in the double joy of Christmas and of having their father back, the children forgot for the time the trouble that hung over them all. To them his return made the season seem a more than usually joyful one; but Aunt Emma felt that, because of the trouble, Christmas should be ignored by them that year, and not kept up in any way. "I am sure your poor father won't feel up to eating any Christmas dinner, or having any fun, or anything," she said gloomily. "We'd better let Christmas go by just like any other time. I've worries enough on my mind to keep me from rejoicing, and your poor father the same."