A shelf in the inside cellarway off the hall was the only pantry, and the sides of the cellarway the only tin-cupboard; then for want of a place for the flour barrel, it was left standing opposite the cellar door in the hall. In this part of the house people went by feeling, not by sight, and strangers as a rule always collided with the barrel before entering the kitchen. The little passage between the back part of the house and the wall of the one adjoining it--simply a pathway to the back entrance of the cellar--Mrs. Davis canopied with old sails and utilized as a laundry. Here she kept her washing bench, tubs and pails, and here she washed and ironed when the weather permitted. This furnished the view from the back parlor window. The cellar and its hanging shelf had their share of plunder, and here the firewood was sawed and split. As for pictures, there were more than enough for all the rooms, and between them wall pockets, paper racks and brackets abounded. Her family of birds--a robin she had rescued from a cat, a pair of turtle doves and a canary--she attached to the kitchen ceiling. She made a little place in the shed for her cat's bed, and found a shelter for a few hens in the small outhouse. Her dog, more aristocratic, slept on the lounge. On a shelf over the dining table were a clock, some china vases, and a stuffed parrakeet. No wonder that upon entering the house the first thing observed was the over-filled appearance of each small room. Upon a bracket in the front parlor she placed a model of a ship that had been given to Captain Fritzinger by the maker. This pleased Mr. Whitman exceedingly, for he had often noticed and admired it. He said that the first time he had desired to write anything was when he saw a ship in full sail. He tried to describe it exactly and failed; had often since studied ships in the vain hope of getting the whole beautiful story into words, but had never been able to do so. The mantels of both parlors Mrs. Davis heaped with shells and curiosities from distant parts of the world. Some of them were rare and valuable. Such was the inside of the house after it had passed through Mary's transforming hands. There were many things in it that might have been better elsewhere, perhaps. But where? It was only a little house, and Mary had come to it from a larger one, with all her possessions. She had nowhere else to put them now, without losing them. If Mr. Whitman had any sense of being over-crowded, it was his own fault. She had come at his urging--and he had taken the two large parlors on the first floor, and the large front chamber with the anteroom above, entirely for his own use, thus leaving for the two women the kitchen (which he shared with them in its aspect of dining room) and the only remaining room in the house--the little back chamber on the second floor. Into this, they condensed and squeezed their more personal belongings. IV THE NEW RÉGIME