"Law sakes alive!"--she rolled and shook--"dey's a despit lot o' rats down sullar, an' I can't b'ar 'em up yere nohow." Ethan was the only one of the party outside to join her cheerful laughter. But the ruinous state of the property was too obvious for him to realize that he could possibly be expected to overlook it. When they went in-doors Ethan followed his grandmother to her own room, where he had sat with her that first evening so long ago and heard that Jerusha was his aunt. They had a long and eminently satisfactory talk until, towards its end, Ethan straightforwardly introduced the subject of the evident need of repairs, and the pleasure it would give him to-- He was "quite mistaken," she interrupted, drawing herself up, and, to his amazement, receiving the suggestion at the point of the sword. There was nothing wrong with the place. He had his head full of châteaus and palaces. Of course, this was quite an ordinary-- "No, no, it's not the least ordinary. It's picturesque and beautiful; but it--you must see for yourself it's falling to decay." "Like ourselves, it doesn't get younger; but it naturally suits us better than it can hope to suit you." He gave up his point for the time being, finding a sudden flaw in his own taste, that could so soon after his arrival suggest that anything here could be changed for the better. "Come to the upper hall," he said to Val after the mid-day dinner; "help me to unpack, and see if anything I've picked up in my travels will do for a present to Aunt Jerusha." Val followed him up-stairs, into the seventh heaven. She knew she ought to call Emmie; but why spoil it? "You never answered my last letter," she said with lowered voice as they reached the landing. "Didn't I? I'm so sorry. I thought I had. But it's so long ago." "Not so very." "About three years. You've rather neglected me of late." He smiled down into her lifted eyes. "Perhaps I didn't know your new address." "'Monroe et Cie, 7, Rue Scribe, Paris,' always finds me." "I thought you told grandma to write direct to the Rue de Provence." "Ah yes, at one time. I left there a long while ago." He was unlocking his trunk. Should she tell him about the letter that had evidently got lost? It somehow wouldn't be so easy as she supposed. And what was the use? Anyhow, here was Emmie trailing up-stairs with a rather downcast face, saying: "Grandma thought I might come too and see Aunt Jerusha's--" "Of course; and why not, I'd like to know?" said Ethan, with a welcoming look, as he tumbled his clothes out on the floor. It was awfully interesting--embarrassing, too. What a lot of things he had, for a man!