The southwestern front room was Britomarte’s bedchamber, which was also shared by Judith. It was daintily fitted up with furniture saved from the ladies’ cabin and berths of the wreck. It had a neat carpet on the floor, white curtains at the windows, and two little white beds, in opposite corners. It had also a chest of drawers surmounted by a looking glass, flanked by a workbox and a dressing case; a washstand provided with a white china basin, ewer and soap dish, only a little the worse for being knocked about in the wreck; a low chair, a footstool, a little candlestand, and other small conveniences. The southwestern back room was Justin’s sleeping apartment. It was fitted up with severe simplicity. The windows were not even glazed, but were only provided with rough wooden shutters; the hard floor was bare; the bed was a narrow mattress laid upon a rude bedstead; the washstand was a broad wooden shelf, with a tin basin and a stone pitcher; the chair was a three-legged stool, and the wardrobe a few strong pegs driven into the walls, upon which he hung his clothes. All these primitive articles of furniture were of his own manufacture, from fragments of the wreck. This rude seaside dwelling place was fenced in by a low wall made by driving short stakes, cut from the cocoa tree, closely together into the ground after the manner of a stockade; and two rude gates, one front and one back, gave entrance and exit to the premises. At the back of the yard there was a small storehouse, or pantry, built to keep a limited supply of provisions—the great bulk of their provisions being still kept in the mountain grottoes, where they could best be preserved. A few tropical vines had been transplanted from the thicket at the base of the mountain to the soil in front of the house, and had readily taken root, and were now trained up to festoon and shade the windows and doors. At the end of the first autumn month all was ready. It was on a certain Wednesday afternoon that our friends first took possession of their new home. Justin, having seen the women established, went to his outdoor work, which was just now the transplanting of some young fruit trees that he had raised in a nursery from the seeds, and that now needed to be set out. Britomarte took her needlework—some shirts that she was neatly repairing for Justin—and seated herself beside the front window of her bedchamber, looking out to the western sea, and across toward her own native land. It was a novelty and a delight—perhaps the greatest novelty and the greatest delight of the whole change—to be able to sit sewing at an open window, and looking out upon the land, sea and sky. Heretofore, since she had been on the island, she had not been able to do so.