The room next to the kitchen, that had been Clare's, had been stripped of its furnishing, and a glistening yellow pine table set in the middle, with six painted wood chairs. The table was perpetually spread on a fringed red or blue cloth; the center occupied by a large silver-plated castor, its various rings filled with differently shaped bottles and shakers. At the end where Lettice sat heavy white cups and saucers were piled; at Gordon's place a knife and fork were propped up on their guards. On either side were the plates of Simeon and Mrs. Caley. Each place boasted a knife and formidable steel fork--the spoons were assembled in a glass receptacle--and a napkin thrust into a ring of plaited hair plainly marked with the sign of the respective owner. Mrs. Caley silently put before Gordon a pinkish loin of pork, boiled potatoes and a bowl of purple, swimming huckleberries; this she fortified by a vessel of gravy and section of pie. There was tea. "Where's Lettice?" Gordon demanded. Apparently Mrs. Caley had not heard him. "Lettice," he raised his voice; "here's supper." "I don't want anything to eat, thank you, Gordon," she returned from another room. "You ought to eat," he called back, attacking the pork. Then he muttered, "--full of ideas and airs. Soft." III Beyond the dining room was their bedroom, and beyond that a chamber which, for years in a state of deserted, semi-ruin, Gordon had had newly floored and rendered weather-proof, and now used as a place of assemblage. He found Lettice there when he had finished supper. She was sitting beside a small table which held a lighted lamp with a shade of minute, woven pieces of various silks. Behind her was a cottage organ, a mass of fretted woodwork; a wall pierced by a window was ornamented by a framed photograph of a woman dead and in her coffin. The photograph had faded to a silvery monotony, but the details of the rigid, unnatural countenance, the fixed staring eyes, were still clear. Redly varnished chairs with green plush cushions and elaborate, thread antimacassars, a second table ranged against the wall, bearing a stout volume entitled "A Cloud of Witnesses," and a cheap phonograph, completed the furnishing. It was warm without, but Lettice had shut the window, the shawl was still about her shoulders. She was sewing upon a small piece of white material. "Here, General, here," Gordon commanded, and the dog followed him seriously into the room. "Pat him, Lettice, so's he'll get to know you," he urged. "I don't think I want to," she began; but, at her husband's obvious impatience, she experimented doubtfully, "Here, puppy." "Can't you call him by his name?" he interrupted. "How ever'll he come to know it?" "I don't want to call him at all," she protested, a little wildly. "I don't like him to-night; perhaps to-morrow I will feel different." "Well, do or don't, that dog's a part of the house, and I don't want to hear Mrs. Caley say this or that about it, neither."