by the mistress of the house, she descended to the basement, where she
was told by Aunt Polly that "the blinds were going to be repainted, an
addition built, the house turned wrong-side out, and Cain raised
generally."

"It's a burning shame," said Aunt Polly, warmed up by her subject and
the hot oven into which she was thrusting loaves of bread and pies.
"It's a burning shame--a tearin' down and a goin' on this way, and
marster not cold in his grave. Miss Lenora, with all her badness, says
it's disgraceful, but he might ha' know'd it. _I_ did. I know'd it the
fust time she came here a nussin'. I don't see what got into him to
have her. Polly Pepper, without any larnin', never would ha' done such
a thing," continued she, as the door closed upon her visitor, who was
anxious to carry the gossip back to the village.

It was even as Aunt Polly had said. Mrs. Hamilton, who possessed a
strong propensity for pulling down and building up, and who would have
made an excellent carpenter, had long had an earnest desire for
improving the homestead; and now that there was no one to prevent her,
she went to work with a right good will, saying to Lenora, who
remonstrated with her upon the impropriety of her conduct, that "she
was merely carrying out dear Mr. Hamilton's plans," who had proposed
making these changes before his death.

"Dear Mr. Hamilton!" repeated Lenora, "very dear has he become to you,
all at once. I think if you had always manifested a little more
affection for him and his, they might not have been where they now
are."

"Seems to me you take a different text from what you did some months