"My story begins in the long, low, pleasant farmhouse sitting-room, with its big beam running across the low ceiling. There was also a great fireplace, and a wide stone hearth. There we children cracked our nuts, and there, on winter evenings, a great basket of Rhode-Island Greenings always stood warming in the corner. Of course there was a wide mantel over the fireplace. On it stood two tall silver candlesticks, between them were the hour-glass and the snuffer-tray, and at each end of the shelf was a stiff vase, filled with peacock feathers." [Illustration] "Don't forget the windows," interrupted Roy. "Never fear," I said. "The windows were the loveliest I ever saw,--wide, and deep, and low, and cushioned with red morseen." "And your grandmother always sat at the south window, knitting, and reading out of the Bible or the Pilgrim's Progress," said Fred. [Illustration] "And she had a bag of red-and-white sugar-plums, to give you when you were good," continued Roy. "That is all true," I observed. "What comes next?" "Why, the chrysanthemum-window, of course," said both boys in a chorus. "There were yellow, red, and white ones," continued Roy. "Yes," said I, "and I will tell you of the many other pleasant things in the room that I so dearly love to remember." "There was a chintz lounge, a striped home-made carpet, a big arm-chair for father, and a high-backed rocking-chair for my mother. "But the most attractive place in the whole room was the corner cupboard. It had a carved green door, and was painted inside a bright vermilion-red. On one shelf stood a silver tankard filled with solid silver spoons, and behind it, in stately shining rows, my grandmother's pewter platters. "On the next higher shelf stood a set of pink china, a little stout green pitcher, a dozen wine-glasses, and a great blue punch-bowl, gorgeous with yellow butterflies hovering over great double pink roses. "There were tumblers of jelly on the top shelf, and jars of preserves, and covered glass dishes of honey, and a box made of colored porcupine-quills, in which mother kept her currants, raisins, citron, and candied lemon-peel. "Now comes the story-part. One day my brothers were all out in the woods setting traps. Mother had just run into Mrs. Newman's for a little call, grandma was spending the day in town, and Alice, my sister, was out working among the flowers. "Suddenly I thought, 'How good those raisins in the porcupine box would taste!' I did not pause long to consider, but climbed the red shelves of the closet, took down the blue-and-yellow box, and helped myself. I set it back again hastily, for I heard Alice coming in at the back-door. That very night I missed my red coral beads.