* * * * * A year and a day had passed since this conversation; then there issued from two houses at Woodman’s Well two little parties on their way to the parish church. But this time no little coffin was carried to the graveyard; on the contrary, two lusty little infants were being conveyed to the baptismal font; and the parties issued respectively from the cottage of the Leveridges and from that of the Weldons. And as both parties arrived at the toll-gate, the woman who inhabited the toll-house issued forth, to act as sponsor to both babes. And as she walked along she said to old Mrs. Weldon, “Who ever would have thought it, last time us two went this way?” “Who ever would?” answered Mrs. Weldon; “but Jack might have gone far and fared worse.” “And then—Thomas Leveridge?” “He’s taken to caring for home first, and politics come second only.” “Well, well! The last time we were here together it was to a burying; but it is true, that sayin’ of Scriptur’, ‘From Death we have passed to Life.’” CICELY CROWE CICELY CROWE I Our house is a long one; it takes two minutes to walk from one end to the other, consequently by the time one has gone from the principal staircase at the east extremity to the kitchen at the west, one is older by two minutes; whether one has grown in the time I am unable to say, never having taken measures before starting and on arriving. It is satisfactory that the staircase and not the dining-room occupies the extreme east, otherwise we should always partake of cold meals. But as if the main block of the house were not, in all conscience, long enough, at some unknown period since its first construction a back kitchen was added beyond the kitchen, farther west, and then, a little room only reached by a stair farther west still. This little “prophet’s chamber” was, however, one used within my recollection for the keeping of the feathers of geese and fowls that had been plucked, where they accumulated till sufficient for the composition of a feather bed, when they were picked, cleaned, baked, and made up. Before this final process I well remember, as a child of eight or nine, scrambling into this little chamber, and then rolling and dancing among the feathers, and making, as I believed, a snowstorm about me. The after effects were not conducive to comfort; and I remember that the process of scrubbing and cleansing me and my clothes after this snowstorm was both irksome and lengthy. That experience was never repeated, not only because of the cleansing process, but also because I was put across my father’s knee, and the lesson not to play with feathers and raise snowstorms was impressed on me with a square ruler, till my father got hot in the face, and I—hot, elsewhere. The same little stair that conducted to the feather room, also gave admission to a low garret above the back kitchen. This garret contained all kinds of imaginable and unimaginable lumber.