"Well, it is, and then ag'in it ain't, jest accordin' to the way you look at it. There's a sight more the matter with folks's p'int o' view than there is with the Lord A'mighty's world.--Now, Jo, if you've got that cretur o' yourn into ship-shape,--it always doos seem to me jest like a human cretur that's got the right p'int o' view, that fiddle doos,--jest give it to us lively." Jo tuned up, with modest satisfaction, and two or three couples stood up to dance. Little Dr. Pingree was about to solicit Miranda's hand for the dance, when there came a knock at the door. Miranda stuck her knitting-needle through her back-hair in an agitated and expectant manner. But it was not the lank figure of the book-peddler, her betrothed, that darkened the door. It was a forlorn woman, dripping with rain, with two small boys clinging to her skirts. "I suppose poor folks have a right to come in here out of the rain," she said, advancing to the fire and seating herself with a sullen and dejected aspect. Little Dr. Pingree, who felt the arrival to be very inopportune, nevertheless gallantly hastened to replenish the fire. The poor-mistress hospitably offered to remove the visitor's wet wrappings, but she shook her head. "I want to find the relatives of Ephrum Spencer," she said. "You'll have to go a good ways," said Cap'n 'Kiah. "The graveyard is chock full of 'em," said Uncle Peter. "They've kind of died out," explained Cap'n 'Kiah. "They seemed to be the kind that dies out easy and nateral." "His uncle Hiram isn't dead, is he?" asked the woman, with the strain of anxiety in her voice. "He died about a year ago." "What's become of his money?" asked the stranger sharply. "Well, there wa'n't so much as folks thought," said Cap'n 'Kiah. "He frittered away a good deal on new-fangled merchines and such things that wa'n't of any account,--had a reg'lar mania for 'em for a year or so before he died; and then he give some money to his housekeeper and the man that worked for him, and what was left he give to the town for a new town-hall; but, along of quarrellin' about where 'twas to set and what 'twas to be built of, and gittin' legal advice to settle the p'ints, I declare if 'tain't 'most squandered! But, la! if there wa'n't such quarrellin' amongst folks, what would become of the lawyers? They'd all be here, a-settin' us by the ears, I expect." "And there isn't a cent for his own nephew's starving children?" said the woman bitterly. "Ephrum's? Oh, la, no! The old man never set by Ephrum, you know: them two was always contr'y-minded. You don't say, now, that you're Ephrum's wife?" Cap'n 'Kiah surveyed her with frank curiosity. "I'm Ephrum's widow." "You don't say so, now! Well, there's wuss ockerpations than bein' a widow," remarked Cap'n 'Kiah consolingly. Miranda had drawn the younger boy to her side. She was chafing his numb hands and smoothing the damp locks from his forehead.