home-spirit,--a tall, large-globed lamp that drew us cosily into its
round of radiance every night.

Not these June nights though. I will tell you presently what the June
nights were at Westover.

We worked hard in those days, but we were right blithe about it. We
had at last got an Irish girl from "far down,"--that is their word for
the north country at home, and the north country is where the best
material comes from,--who was willing to air her ignorance in our
kitchen, and try our Christian patience, during a long pupilage, for
the modest sum of three dollars a week; than which "she could not
come indeed for less," said the friend who brought her. "All the girls
was gettin' that." She had never seen dipped toast, and she "couldn't
do starched clothes very skilful"; but these things had nothing to do
with established rates of wages.

But who cared, when it was June, and the smell of green grass and the
singing of birds were in the air, and everything indoors was clean,
and fresh with the wonderful freshness of things set every one in a
new place? We worked hard and we made it look lovely, if the things
were old; and every now and then we stopped in the midst of a busy
rush, at door or window, to see joyfully and exclaim with ecstasy how
grandly and exquisitely Nature was furbishing up her beautiful old
things also,--a million for one sweet touches outside, for ours in.

"Westover is no longer an adverbial phrase, even qualifying the verb
'to go,'" said Barbara, exultingly, looking abroad upon the family
settlement, to which our new barn, rising up, added another building.
"It is an undoubted substantive proper, and takes a preposition before