“Johnny,” said the old lady, speaking as severely as a stout old lady with dimples in her cheeks and a twinkle in her eyes could be expected to speak, when addressing her only grandson--“Johnny, I do declare for ’t, you air the worst boy! What under the canopy will you go to cuttin’ up next? Come right in, my dear,” she said to Linda, “and make yourself to home. Johnny, you run along and help the gentleman; and tell Mr. Doran your gran’ther will pay the bill.” “Oh, I’m going to pay it myself, grandma, with my own pocket-money, if the gentleman will let me; but he says he won’t.” And Johnny was off before he had done speaking. “I declare for ’t,” said his grandmother, “that boy is a regular Burbank; jest exactly what the deacon used to be at his age--always into suthin’. I knew the deacon when he wa’n’t any older than Johnny, an’ I remember jest how he used to act. Take off your things, my dear, and make yourself to home.” She took Linda’s hat and sacque, and carried them into the spare bed-room, where there was a great “four-poster” bedstead, with blue-and-white chintz hangings and a blue-and-white spread; and then she came and sat down by Linda, and asked her a great many questions about the break-down, and about her father and mother and herself, but she was such a nice old lady that Linda did not mind her being a little inquisitive. In return, she gave Linda quite a complete history of her own family, and told her a number of entertaining stories about Johnny and Johnny’s father, and about the deacon when he was a boy. Finally, she looked at the queer old clock on the kitchen mantle-shelf, and remarked: “It’s time I was gittin’ my dinner over to cook, and I guess I shall have to leave you to amuse yourself a little while, my dear. You might go out an’ look ’round the garden, if you want; or maybe you’d ruther go up in the garret, an’ look at Johnny’s picture-books an’ things. He likes to stay up there, when it rains so’t he can’t go out.” “Oh, I should like that, of all things!” cried Linda, delighted. “I do love a real old-fashioned garret, with all sorts of old things in it!” “Do you now? Well,” said Mrs. Burbank, beaming over the gold-bowed spectacles, “our garret is full of old truck, an’ you can go up there an’ rummage ’round all you’ve a min’ to.” She opened the door of a narrow staircase, with steep and well-worn stairs, and told Linda that was the way to the back chamber over the kitchen, and when she got up there she would see the garret stairs; and she guessed Linda could find the way up alone. She was pretty hefty herself, and she didn’t travel up and down stairs any more than she could help. Linda very quickly found her way to the garret, which proved to be indeed a veritable treasury of “old truck;” and her brown eyes opened wide with ecstasy as she caught sight of a real, genuine spinning-wheel, stowed away under the low, sloping roof.