At last a farm-house of stone, low-roofed and sheltered in a hollow of the hills, presented itself. Samuel Parris knocked upon the door with his knuckles two or three times, when a voice bade him "come in." He pulled a thong which lifted a wooden latch inside, and entered a low room in which a woman sat alone spinning on one of those small flax-wheels with which our mothers in the olden time used to fill up the leisure hours obtained from the general housework. She was a spare, not to say gaunt woman, a little on the sunny side of mid age; not exactly austere of countenance, but with a certain gravity which was in that epoch considered an outward sign of experimental religion. The woman arose in evident surprise when her strange guests entered. Pushing back the spinning-wheel with her foot, she stood bolt upright, waiting to know what had brought them under her roof. Mr. Parris stepped forward, and told his story in a few terse words, during which the good wife was unbanding her wheel and removing the checked apron which had protected her dress while at work. "Walk in and make yourself to home, ma'am," said the housewife, opening the door of an inner room and revealing a fire-place filled with pine branches which looked drearily cold that heavy day. "The hired man is out, but if one of these sailor men will bring in some wood from the yard, I'll get some pitch pine knots and have a fire in no time." Without more ceremony, the woman went to work, and in less than half an hour Barbara Stafford was in a warm bed, with a bowl of herb tea smoking on a little round table by her pillow, while her young preserver lay in a smaller room equally well provided for. For Samuel Parris and the sailors the good wife insisted on providing a comfortable supper; and gave up her own bed to the minister, while she found room for the unfortunate seamen in a loft of the house. In order to accomplish this, she was sadly put about for blue and white yarn coverlets with which to restore them to warmth, but stripped every bed in the house, and, when that resource was exhausted, brought out all her linsey-woolsey skirts and aprons as a substitute. Early in the morning Norman Lovel was aroused from a deep slumber by the hand of Samuel Parris laid gently on his shoulder. The youth started up, shook back his hair which the dampness had left crisp and curling over his forehead, and cast an astonished look around, which ended in a long, half-angry gaze at his visitor. "Oh!" he said, sweeping a hand once or twice across his eyes, then turning his face toward the old man, with a smile. "This is no dream, I suppose--though you are here with the roar of waters too--a minute since I was fighting them like a tiger; but this is a feather bed, and you stand upon a good oak floor. Is it not so?" "Yes, thanks to the Holy of holies, we are safe!" "But that ship--the boat--the lady--tell me what is real and what was dreaming."