The walls of the room, which was about twenty feet by twelve in dimensions, were hung with small, colored pictures, in mahogany frames; an high shoe bench in one corner, a few flag bottom chairs, a table and two small workstands, and four pair of shoemaker's clamps, arranged at the windows, constituted the simple but substantial furniture. But there was over all an air of neatness about it truly charming. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. "Must make yerselves at home here," said Mrs. Trotbridge. "Things, maybe, ain't as nice as yer used to havin' 'em, but poor folks must do the best they can, and hope better 'll come." And while the good woman set about lighting a fire in the great open fireplace, Major Potter got between two chairs, into each of which an urchin mounted, with a broom in his hand, and so belabored his jacket as to fill the room with dust. "The major is always at home in this house," dryly ejaculated the good woman, taking down her bellows and commencing to blow the fire. "I know how to appreciate it, Mrs. Trotbridge, and hope nothing may come to lengthen the distance between our friendship," returned the major, shrugging his great broad shoulders, and adding that I could now go through the process of dusting while he washed his face, preparatory to listening to how times went with Mrs. Trotbridge. He had previously ordered the boys to water his chickens, and now, having at his desire brought in the fish, he presented them to the hostess with all that pomp and dignity so common with government employés, who present the heads of departments with services of plate bought with their own money, and which intolerable nuisance had its origin among the kings and queens of the buskin. They were, he slyly intimated, worth seven Massachusetts shillings. The shrewd fishmonger wanted nine, but, saying I was going to present them to a dear old friend, he threw off two. No New York alderman ever received a gold snuff box for abusing his office with more condescension than did Mrs. Trotbridge the fish so kindly presented by the major. Saying he was proverbially a modest man, the major begged she would forego any return of thanks and accept them solely as a token of the affection he bore her, and which he certainly would enlarge were it not that Mrs. Roger Potter yet lived, and was hale and hearty. The widow blushed for once, saying as she did so, that there was a time when such a compliment would not have been lost upon her, but now that she had got on the wrong side of forty, was getting gray, and had seen three dear good husbands put away in the grave, she did not think it right to be "lookin' out," especially as Parson Stebbins had always said, when he looked in, that woman's worldly thoughts ought to end at forty.