"There!" she said at last, rising, "I dunno's I ever eat such a meal o' victuals in my life, but I guess it's better'n many a poor soldier used to have. Now, if you've got some wood to chop, you go an' do it, an' I'll clear up this kitchen; it's a real hurrah's nest, if ever there was one!" All that afternoon, the stranger chopped wood, pausing, from time to time, to look from the shed door down the country road; and Mrs. Wadleigh, singing "Fly like a Youthful," "But O! their end, their dreadful end," and like melodies which had prevailed when she "set in the seats," flew round, indeed, and set the kitchen in immaculate order. Evidently her guest had seldom left that room. He had slept there on the lounge. He had eaten his potatoes there, and smoked his pipe. When the early dusk set in, and Mrs. Wadleigh had cleared away their supper of baked potatoes and salt fish, again with libations of quince, she drew up before the shining stove, and put her feet on the hearth. "Here!" she called to the man, who was sitting uncomfortably on one corner of the woodbox, and eying her with the same embarrassed watchfulness. "You draw up, too! It's the best time o' the day now, 'tween sunset an' dark." "I guess I'd better be goin'," he returned, doggedly. "Goin'? Where?" "I don't know. But I'm goin'." "Now look here," said Mrs. Wadleigh, with rigor. "You take that chair, an' draw up to the fire. You do as I tell you!" He did it. "Now, I can't hender your goin', but if you do go, I've got a word to say to you." "You needn't say it! I don't want nobody's advice." "Well, you've got to have it jest the same! When you bile potaters, don't you let 'em run over onto the stove. Now you remember! I've had to let the fire go down here, an' scrub till I could ha' cried. Don't you never do such a thing ag'in, wherever you be!" He could only look at her. This sort of woman was entirely new to his experience. "But I've got somethin' else to say," she continued, adjusting her feet more comfortably. "I ain't goin' to turn anybody out into the snow, such a night as this. You're welcome to stay, but I want to know what brought ye here. I ain't one o' them that meddles an' makes, an' if you 'ain't done nothin' out o' the way, an' I ain't called on for a witness, you needn't be afraid o' my tellin'." "You will be called on!" he broke in, speaking from a desperation outside his own control. "It's murder! I've killed a man!" He turned upon her with a savage challenge in the motion; but her face was set, placidly forward, and the growing dusk had veiled its meaning. "Well!" she remarked, at length, "ain't you ashamed to set there talkin' about it! You must have brass enough to line a kittle! Why 'ain't you been, like a man, an' gi'n yourself up, instid o' livin' here, turnin' my kitchen upside down? Now you tell me all about it! It'll do ye good."