After the table was clear, Margaret took up the paper, read for a few moments, then dropped it suddenly and went into the kitchen. Zella, who was knitting a skirt of scarlet yarn, seemed very sulky and angry when Margaret bade her take some wood to the attic bedroom. “I no carry for hired man,” was her rejoinder. “You will take the wood up to-night,” said Margaret, in the quiet, decided tone that was habitual to her; “to-morrow he will carry it himself.” In a short time a fire was started in the old, open-fronted wood stove, that sent a welcome glow across the long, low room with its deeply recessed dormer windows. The furniture consisted of an old-fashioned four-posted bedstead and some spindle-backed chairs, discarded long ago from the lower rooms, an old chest of drawers and a table, while a row of wooden pegs behind the chimney did duty as a closet. Going to the adjoining lumber room, Margaret pulled open a long trunk and took a chintz quilt, some curtains that had originally belonged to the old bed, and three or four carpet rugs. These she dragged into the attic, and then brought from a downstairs room a large rocking-chair, covered with Turkey red, and a blue china bowl and pitcher. The last man who had slept in the attic had washed at the pump. In a few minutes the bare room looked quite habitable, and Margaret returned to her newspaper. In perhaps half an hour her father returned, and she heard Waldsen’s steps going up the creaking back stairs. “Well, daughter, quite a figure of a man, isn’t he? I know you don’t like to have men folks about, but you see this arrangement will advantage me greatly. If I can sell him the Hill Farm, it will be so much clear gain, besides being a bargain for him, for it’s running down and needs lots of tinkering. And if we get a good neighbour there, it won’t be so lonesome for you when I go over town. I can arrange with him for half-time work in the growing season, so he can get his fruit running. I’ll sell that place for three thousand dollars—and three thousand dollars in hand,—why, Margaret, you might go to Europe next summer with Judge Martin’s folks! He told me yesterday they expected to take a tour, and that if I’d let you go, you’d be good company for Elizabeth. What do you say to that, daughter?” Going to him and sitting on the arm of his chair, she hid her face on his shoulder, a childish habit of hers, and said: “Dear old dad, I should want you to go with me, and then, besides, it is all so uncertain. This man may not really want to buy a place, or he may have no money, or—or, a great many things may not be true!” “No, no, child! the man is all right, he wants to have a home of his own by next Christmas. There is some reason why his sister cannot come until then. I like to keep you with me, but my little girl is too lonely; she must see more company, and if she’s too wise and too proud for the folks about home, why, this place isn’t the whole world.”