tired from his patients, and that's the rocking-chair I nursed my
babies in; and this is the old oak table we've sat round three times
a day, the family of us growing and thinning, as the time went on,
all through these years. It's like a communion table, now, Laura. Of
course such things had to come."

This was what she answered, when Laura ejaculated her amazement at
her having brought "old Homesworth truck" to Boston.

"You see it isn't the walls that make the home; we can go away from
them and not break our hearts, so long as our own goes with us. The
little things that we have used, and that have grown around us with
our living,--they are all of living that we can handle and hold on
to; and if I went to Spitzbergen, I should take as many of them as I
could."

The Aspen Street house just suited Mrs. Ripwinkley, and Diana, and
Hazel.

In the first place, it was wooden; built side to the street, so that
you went up a little paved walk, in a shade of trees, to get to the
door; and then the yard, on the right hand side as you came in, was
laid out in narrow walks between borders of blossoming plants. There
were vines against the brick end of the next building,--creepers and
morning-glories, and white and scarlet runners; and a little
martin-box was set upon a pole in the still, farther corner.

The rooms of the house were low, but large; and some of the windows
had twelve-paned sashes,--twenty-four to a window. Mrs. Ripwinkley
was charmed with these also. They were like the windows at Mile