The hall at this hour presented a very pleasant scene, both the front and the back doors being open and admitting a free current of the fresh summer air, laden with the fragrance of the wild woods which grew closely all around the house. From the midst of the hall arose that grand staircase with its lofty window at the top, forevermore mysterious and memorable to Em. from the ghostly vision of the night before. Now, however, it looked a homely and familiar household object enough, with the three little girls, Molly, Nelly and Venny running up and down its richly-carpeted steps or sliding on the balustrades. Em. looked up at the high window and at such doors in the upper hall as came within the range of her sight, and with a natural curiosity, wondered into what manner of places they led. “Mother,” she at length inquired, “have you looked into any of the rooms above there?” “No, child, nor the rooms below, either. There hasn’t been a door opened anywhere except into this hall. It is Sunday, you know, and neither me nor your father believe in doing any more work than we can help on this day, even if we have just arrived at a strange place,” replied Susan Palmer. Em. fell into silent and self-reproachful thought, wondering whether she had not committed a sin and broken the Sabbath by going to look at the lovely white palace on the island. “Don’t you like to live here, Em.? Ain’t it jolly? Ain’t this a splendid old hall? I would like to stay here always, even if they didn’t give us any more of the house to live in than just this. Wouldn’t you?” inquired her youngest brother, Tom, who had just come in with a pail of fresh water from the well. “Oh, it’s bully! It’s like a picnic or camp-meeting what Aunt Monica used to tell us about,” chimed in Ned, who was piling up a little heap of brush in a corner. “I hope they’ll let us stay just here, where we can slide on the banisters all day long,” sung out little Nelly from her perch on the stairs. “Them children will break their necks! John, can’t you make them come down and behave themselves? They don’t mind me one bit!” cried out Mrs. Palmer, pausing in the midst of slicing cold ham. “Lor’, Susan, woman, young uns is like kittens and monkeys. It is their natur’ to climb. ‘Sich is life;’ and it’s cruel to perwent ’em; besides, these poor things never had a chance to climb in all their lives before.” “And now they’ll go it, you may depend! They’ll be swarming up all these trees like bees before the week is out if you encourage them so.” “Well, I hope they will. It will do ’em good. ‘Sich is life,’” concluded aggravating John. All this time Em. had made no remark, but was silently putting the dinner on the table. It was a cold dinner of bread, butter, ham, pies and well water; for neither Susan nor John would have any cooking done on Sunday. “I think I like this gypsy sort of life myself,” said John as he began to drag the heavy, high-backed oaken chair from the wall up to the table.