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Wilford's letter had been delayed so that the , and never sure was there a busier afternoon at the farmhouse than the one which followed the receipt of the letter Everything that was not spotlessly clean before wasdown upon her knees to scrub the door sill of the back roouest were expected to sit in there On Aunt Hannah and Mrs Lennox devolved the duty of preparing for the wants of the innertheir hu the most of their plain furniture

"If Uncle Ephraim had only let -room instead of this little tucked up hole," Mrs Lennox said, co a rueful look at the small room kept for company, and where Wilford was to sleep

It was not very spacious, being only large enough to adle chair, and the old-fashioned washstand with the hole in the top for the bowl and a drawer beneath for towels, the whole presenting acontrast to those handsome chambers on Fifth Avenue, or, indeed, to the one at the Ocean House where Wilford sat s the time ahile Helen and Katy held a consultation as to whether it would not be better to dispense with the parlor altogether and give that room to their visitor But this was vetoed by Aunt Betsy, who, having finished the back door sill, had now co brush in one hand and her saucer of sand in the other, held forth upon the foolishness of the girls

"Of course if they had a beau, they'd want a t'other room, else where would they do their sparkin'"

That settled it The parlor should remain as it was, Katy said, and Aunt Betsy went on with her scouring, while Helen and Katy consulted together how to e feather bed seem more like the mattresses such as Morris had, and such as Mr Caestive solved the probleht froarret and folded carefully over the bed, which, thus hardened and flattened, "see it good, and feeling quite well satisfied with the room when it was finished And certainly it was not wholly uninviting with its snowy bed, whose covering al in front, its vase of flowers upon the stand and its white fringed curtain sweeping back from the narro