The wooden courser was not to be seen at first glance. The room was a small irregularly-shaped one, with an intrusive chimney jutting out into the floor from one side, as if it were a sturdy brick-and-mortar poor relation of the premises come a visiting and not to be got rid of at any price. A small cooking-stove was in the fireplace, with an attendant on either side in the shape of a battered coal-scuttle, and a small saucepan full of charcoal; the floor was covered with a dirty rag carpet that had long since outlived its beauty and its usefulness, and was now in the last extremity of a tattered old age; half-a-dozen chairs of different patterns, all much shattered in health and enfeebled by long years of labor, and a decrepit lounge in the last stages of a decline, were the seats reserved for visitors; the other furniture of the room was an antique chest of drawers of a most curious and complicated pattern—it seemed as if the mechanic had been uncertain whether he was to construct a bureau or a cow-shed, and had accordingly satisfied his conscience by making half-a-dozen drawers and building a sloping roof over them; the joints were warped apart, and through the chinks could be seen fragments of clean shirt, and ends of lace, and bits of flannel, suggesting babies. At a wink from the female, the male with the ponderous boots retired from the presence. Mrs. Pugh is a woman of medium height and size, with a clear grey eye, and light hair, and wearing that sycophantic smile peculiar to people who have much to do with ugly babies whose beauty must be constantly praised to the doting parents. She was attired in a neat calico dress, constructed for family use, and for the particular accommodation of the younger members of the household. Johannes, who had been taking a sly look, had made up his mind that she would not be quite so objectionable for a wife as he had feared, and he had fully resolved to woo and wed her off-hand, provided she had the broomstick of his hopes. So, by way of a beginning, he announced that he would like her to exercise her magic powers in his behalf. Mrs. Pugh had evidently previously regarded him as an enthusiastic young father with a pair of troublesome twins, who had come to seek her ministrations, and she undoubtedly had high wages, innumerable presents, and exorbitant perquisites in her mind’s eye at that instant.