"Has seen Brown holding sweet converse with a comrade tried and true, of specially obnoxious character. Look here, Lucy!" Mr. Aymer blew a smoke ring and looked inquiringly at his wife, knitting briskly in her corner by the rose-shaded lamp. "How _does_ your friend Nippitt know all this? I want to go a little bit slow here." "Oh, John! you _are_ so tiresome! I am sure, and so is Mary, that Pippit is perfectly truthful. Why, you have only to look at him! When he smiles--John, you needn't laugh! I would believe anything that boy said. And here he offers of his own free will to watch the house at night for a week, or as long as is necessary, if we will just give him a shakedown in the shed. I am sure the least we can do is to accept such an offer as that. The old night watchman would never offer to do such a thing." "The night watchman is not paid to sleep in people's sheds, my dear!" "Well, he might as well. He never comes through this street at all, that I know of. _Well_, John, did you tell Lippitt--Pippit--he was to come? I shall feel _so_ safe if he is there!" "Yes!" said Mr. Aymer slowly. "I told him he might come, and now the question is whether I am only a plain fool, or a--" "And now we need not lose our sleep!" Mrs. Aymer laid down her knitting, and came forward to rumple her John's hair affectionately, and deposit a kiss on his forehead. "You ought not to lose one wink of sleep just now, John, with stock-taking just coming on, and if I lie awake I am such a _fright_ next day, and you don't like me to be a fright, do you, dear?" "Neither to be nor to have!" said John. "Sooner shall Pippit occupy the shed for life." "The loft could be made into a perfectly good bedroom if ever--" Mrs. Aymer cast a guilty glance at her husband, and went to fetch the cribbage board. While this conversation was going on in the parlor with its rose chintz hangings, another dialogue was being held in the kitchen. Mary admired the parlor, dusted reverentially its _bibelots_, plumped its cushions to perfection; but for coziness, she must say, give her her kitchen! It certainly was cozy this evening, with the red half-curtains drawn, and the lamplight shining on white enamel and blue crockery; shining on Mary, too, sitting in her low rocking-chair, knitting as swiftly and steadily as was the lady in the parlor. They were fast friends, mistress and maid, and it was a race between them which should produce the more socks and mufflers in this year when all the world was knitting. Pippin, sitting as near as he thought manners would allow, watched the flying fingers and glittering needles, and wished that he might be a sock, just for a minute, to feel how soft her hands would be. Now Mary's hands were not soft; she would have been ashamed if they had been: firm, strong little hands, used to work ever since she could remember.