The “spare bedroom,” kept for company, was only large enough to admit the high-post bed, a single chair, and the old-fashioned wash-stand, with the hole in the top for the bowl, and a drawer beneath for towels; and the two girls held a consultation as to whether it would not be better to dispense with the parlor altogether, and give that room to their visitor. But this was vetoed by Aunt Betsy, who, having finished the back door-sill, had now come round to the front, and with her scrubbing-brush in one hand and her saucer of sand in the other, held forth upon the foolishness of the girls. “Of course, if they had a beau, they’d want a t’other room, else where would they do their sparkin’?” That settled it. The parlor must remain as it was, Katy said, and Aunt Betsy went on with her scouring, while Helen and Katy consulted together how to make the huge feather bed more like the mattresses to which Wilford must be accustomed. Helen’s mind being the more suggestive, solved the problem first, and a large comfortable was brought from the box in the garret and folded carefully over the bed, which, thus hardened and flattened, “seemed like a mattress,” Katy said, for she tried it, feeling quite well satisfied with the room when it was finished. And certainly it was not uninviting, with its strip of bright carpeting upon the floor, its vase of flowers upon the stand, and its white-fringed curtain sweeping back from the narrow window. “I’d like to sleep here myself,” was Katy’s comment, while Helen offered no opinion, but followed her sister into the yard, where they were to sweep the grass and prune the early September flowers. This afforded Aunt Betsy a chance to reconnoitre and criticise, which last she did unsparingly. “What have them children been doin’ to that bed? Put on a quilt, as I’m alive! It would break my back to lie there, and this _Carmon_ is none of the youngest, accordin’ to their tell; nigh onto thirty, if not turned. It will make his bones ache, of course. I am glad I know better than to treat visitors that way. The comforter may stay, but I’ll be bound I’ll make it softer!” And stealing up the stairs, Aunt Betsy brought down a second feather bed, much lighter than the one already on, but still large enough to suggest the thought of smothering. This she had made herself, intending it as a part of Katy’s “setting out,” should she ever marry; and as things now seemed tending that way, it was only right, she thought, that Mr. Carmon, as she called him, should begin to have the benefit of it. Accordingly _two_ beds, instead of one, were placed beneath the comfortable, which Aunt Betsy permitted to remain. “I’m mighty feared they’ll find me out,” she said, taking great pains in the making of her bed, and succeeding so well that when her task was done there was no perceptible difference between Helen’s bed and her own, except that the latter was a few inches higher than the former, and more nearly resembled a pincushion in shape.