The woman retreated to the kitchen fireplace, where Uncle Phil joined her, speaking again in a whisper, and saying,— “Look here, Beck. Take that girl’s work-bag, or whatever she brought her things in, and carry it into the north chamber.” “Maude’s room, sar!” Becky asked, with glistening eyes. “Yes, Maude’s room,” Uncle Phil replied, and then went back to Edna, who had but little more to tell, except of her resolve to come to him as the only person in the world who was likely to take her in, or on whom she had any claim of relationship. “I don’t wish to be an incumbrance,” she said. “I want to earn my own living, and at the same time be getting something with which to pay my debts. Mr. Belknap, who brought me from the depot, thought I might get up a select school, and if I do, maybe you will let me board here. I should feel more at home with you than with strangers. Would you let me stay if I could get a school?” There certainly was something the matter with Uncle Phil’s eyes just then. “The pesky wind made them water,” he said, as he wiped them on his coat-sleeves and then looked down at the girl, who had taken a stool at his feet, and was looking anxiously into his face, as she asked if she might stay. “Let me be, can’t you. I’ve got a bad cold. I’ve got to go out,” he said; and rising precipitately he rushed into the kitchen, and again summoning old Becky, began with, “I say, Beck, make a fire in the north chamber, a good rousing one too. It’s cold as fury; and fetch down a rose blanket from the garret, and warm the bed with the warming-pan; the sheets must be damp; and make some cream-toast in the morning; all cream,—girls mostly take to that, and stew some _crambries_ to-morrow, and kill a hen.” Having completed his list of orders Uncle Phil returned to Edna, while Becky, who, in anticipation of some such _dénouement_ had already made a fire in the north and best chamber in the house, went up and added fresh fuel to the flames, which roared, and crackled, and diffused a genial warmth through the room. Meanwhile Uncle Phil, without directly answering Edna’s question as to whether she could stay there, said to her: “And it’s seven hundred dollars you owe, with interest: three to Mr. Leighton, and four to that Peppery woman, and you expect by teaching to earn enough to pay it, child; you never can do that, never. Schoolma’ams don’t get great wages round here.” “Then I’ll hire out as a servant, or go to work in the factory. I’m not ashamed to do anything honorable, so that it gives me money with which to pay the debt,” Edna said, and her brown eyes were almost black with excitement, as she walked hastily across the floor to the window, where she stood for a moment, struggling to keep back the hot tears, and thinking she had made a great mistake in coming to a man like Uncle Phil, who, having regaled himself with two pinches of snuff, said: “Look here, girl. Come back to the fire and let’s have it out.”