And Miss Rachel fed her chickens, counted her eggs, watered her plants and pattered upstairs and down, or sat in her large, sunny room and read her books and magazines, or clicked her knitting needles to the ticking of the tall old clock. Or she gathered a few friends about her for a social tea drinking, or, flung wide the doors of the old house to a troop of nieces and nephews. It was not alone that Miss Whittaker was fond of company, but it was pleasant to keep up the old customs. It was a pitiful attempt to bring back, as far as possible, the old times. It was easier when gay chatter and merry prattle filled the rooms, to see the white-haired father and mother as of old in their arm-chairs by the fireside. The most prosaic have a vein of sentiment somewhere. Rachel Whittaker's took this form; she guarded with a reverence that amounted to idolatry every object and principle belonging to those two. Her father's old hat occupied the identical peg on which he himself hung it the last time he went out; and mother's darning basket stood on the little stand, with balls and thimble and glasses; the needle stuck in the ball of blue yarn just where her own fingers placed it so long ago. And so, housekeeping was something more than ministering to her own wants or entertaining friends; it was having things go on as "they" would like to see them go on. This devoted daughter was careful, as well, to direct the family benevolences into the well-worn channels in which they were accustomed to run. The church subscription and the contributions to home and foreign missions, and the various "Boards," were as faithfully attended to as if good Squire Whittaker still sat at the head of his pew. She even loved and perpetuated her father's prejudices, and was too apt, like him, to have more sympathy for the unfortunate in Booroboolagha, than for those at her own door. She was prone to set all these down as "drunken" or "shiftless." However, she had not much opportunity to cultivate the grace of charity in home work, as nearly all the little community were well-to-do. One of Miss Rachel's duties as a good housekeeper was to see that the large stock of bedding, packed away in trunks and closets, was aired at frequent intervals. It was more than abundant for the needs of a large family—and the Whittaker family was a large one when gathered in the old home at Thanksgiving and the holidays. One day in early winter—"just the right sort of a day for airing bedclothes, so warm and bright," Miss Rachel declared—the lines in the yard were filled with blankets, quilts, comfortables, etc., and the piazza roofs were adorned with feather beds and pillows.