"I like it now," she answered, "it is so comfortable. How lovely this blue is!" "It's a pity she wont keep the blinds shut. The curtains will fade to rags in no time; the sun pours on 'em." "How could I watch the sea then?" I asked. "Good Lord! it's a mystery to me how you can bother over that salt water." "And the smell of the sea-weed," added Aunt Merce. "And its thousand dreary cries," said mother. "Do you like my covered doors?" I inquired. "I vow," Temperance exclaimed, "the nails are put in crooked! And I stood over Dexter the whole time. He said it was damned nonsense, and that you must be awfully spoiled to want such a thing. 'You get your pay, Dexter,' says I, 'for what you do, don't you?' 'I guess I do,' says he, and then he winked. 'None of your gab,' says I. I do believe that man is a cheat and a rascal, I vow I do. But they are all so." "In my young days," Aunt Merce remarked, "young girls were not allowed to have fires in their chambers." "In our young days, Mercy," mother replied, "_we_ were not allowed to have much of anything." "Fires are not wholesome to sleep by," Temperance added. "Miss Veronica never has a fire," piped Fanny, who had remained, occasionally making a stir with the tongs. "But she ought to have!" Temperance exclaimed vehemently. "I do wonder, Mis Morgeson, that you do not insist upon it, though it's none of my business." Father was conducted upstairs, after supper. The fire was freshly made; the shaded lamp on the table before the sofa and the easy-chair pleased him. He came often afterward, and stayed so long, sometimes, that I fell asleep, and found him there, when I woke, still smoking and watching the fire. Veronica looked in at bed-time. "I recognize you here," she said as she passed. But she came back in a few moments in a wrapper, with a comb in her hand, and stood on the hearth combing her hair, which was longer than a mermaid's. The fire was grateful to her, and I believe that she was surprised at the fact. "Why not have a fire in your room, Verry?" "A fire would put me out. One belongs in this room, though. It is the only reality here." "What if I should say you provoke me, perverse girl?" "What if you should?" She gathered up her hair and shook it round her face, with the same elfish look she wore when she pulled it over her eyes as a child. It made me feel how much older I was. "I do not say so, and I will not." "I wish you would; I should like to hear something natural from you." Fanny, coming in with an armful of wood, heard her. Instead of putting it on the fire, she laid it on the hearth, and, sitting upon it with an expression of enjoyment, looked at both of us with an expectant air. "You love mischief, Fanny," I said. "Is it mischief for me to look at sisters that don't love each other?" and, laughing shrilly, she pulled a stick from under her, and threw it on the fire.