This room interested the girl very much. In it Joe was born and frail
Mrs. Wegg and her silent husband had both passed away. It had two broad
French windows with sash doors opening on to a little porch of its own
which was covered thickly with honeysuckle vines. A cupboard was built
into a niche of the thick cobble-stone wall, but it was locked and the
key was missing.

Upstairs the girl had the rubbish removed for the first time in a
generation. The corded bedstead in the north room was sent to join its
fellows in the barn loft, and Ned Long swept everything clean in
readiness for the scrubbers.

Then, while Widow Clark and Nora cleaned industriously--for the blind
woman insisted on helping and did almost as much work as her
companion--the "men folks" proceeded to the barn and under the
school-teacher's directions uncrated the new furniture and opened the
bales of rugs and matting. Lon Taft was building new steps to the front
porch, but Old Hucks and Ned and McNutt reverently unpacked the "truck"
and set each piece carefully aside. How they marveled at the enameled
beds and colored wicker furniture, the easy chairs for lounging, the
dainty dressers and all the innumerable pretty things discovered in
boxes, bales and barrels, you may well imagine. Even Ethel was amazed
and delighted at the thoughtfulness of the dealer in including
everything that might be useful or ornamental in a summer home.

The next few days were indeed busy ones, for the girl entered
enthusiastically upon her task to transform the old house, and with the
material John Merrick had so amply provided she succeeded admirably. The
little maid was country bred, but having seen glimpses of city life and