“The fact is,” she cried, sweeping industriously, while Colonel and Mrs. Tremaine watched from the hall and Lyddon peered in from the window, “all we have to do is just to imagine that we are noble _émigrés_ in England about 1793. You, Uncle Tremaine and Aunt Sophia, can do the sentimental part of the business. Archie and I with Mr. Lyddon will do the work. Archie, you know, is chopping wood at the woodpile, and I have a job for you, Mr. Lyddon.” “What is it?” asked Lyddon helplessly. “If it’s dusting, well, I can dust books. As for chopping wood like Archie, I should not only chop off both of my feet, but my head as well. However, I will do anything in God’s name I can.” “I can find you something,” knowingly replied Angela, “and something I dare say those old Greek ragamuffins, of whom you think so much, did in Thessaly and thereabouts.” “My dearest Sophie and my dear Angela,” cried Colonel Tremaine valiantly, “I feel that I must do my share in this domestic cataclysm. I cannot chop wood--I am seventy-two years old--but I believe that I could wind off the reels the cotton for the looms. I will do my best, my dear Angela, if you will kindly instruct me.” Angela stopped her sweeping and ran and fetched a cotton reel--a rude contrivance consisting of a slender stick of wood about two feet high stuck in a wooden box, with a large reel at the top on which the hanks of cotton, fresh from the spinning wheels, were wound into balls for the old-fashioned hand looms in the loom house. “I think,” said Colonel Tremaine, with profound interest in the subject, “that it would be better to carry the paraphernalia in the drawing-room. Like most of my sex, I dislike extraneous objects in my library.” Just then Archie appeared, red, perspiring, but grinning with delight at his wood-chopping performance. He was charmed with the thought of seeing his father wind cotton, and ran with the reel, which he placed in the drawing-room. Then Angela put a hank of cotton on it, found the end, started the ball, and instructed Colonel Tremaine in his new employment. Mrs. Tremaine, quite woe-begone, yet complimented Angela and Archie upon their readiness and industry. It was as if the two were again children. Hector and Mammy Tulip both came in to see the extraordinary sight of “ole Marse wukkin’.” Hector was indignant at the turn of affairs. “I ’clare, Marse,” he said, with solemn disapproval, “I never speck fur to see you wukkin’ like Saul an’ de witch uv Endaw in de Bible. I tho’t you was proud enough fur to lay down an’ starve ’fore you demean you’sef wid wuk.” “That is what you would do, you black scoundrel,” inadvertently responded Colonel Tremaine, forgetting that others were present, and then hastily adding: “Not that I have ever observed in you any serious disinclination to do your proper work.” Which showed a very great want of observation on Colonel Tremaine’s part.