folks greeted me with an air of subdued decorum as though fresh from a
funeral. There were no caperings, no flauntings, no cavortings. Each
young minx had on her Sunday go-to-meeting air, and the boy stood with
his hat on one side of his head, as though for a sixpence he would
fight all creation. Wondering at the change, I happened to look toward
the house, and there it stood in the light of the fading day, like a
poor old woman without a veil to hide her wrinkles! Every window
looked ashamed of itself, and on the ground lay the dear old vine,
prone as a lost reputation.

"I never see such an ill-fired crank in all the days of my life!"
remarked the painter to the new girl, after I had held a brief but
spirited interview with him over the garden fence; "blanked if she
didn't cry because her vine was down!"




XLVII.

THE OLD SITTING-ROOM STOVE.

What is there within the home, during the winter season at least, that
seems so thoroughly to constitute the soul of home as the family-room
stove? It can never be replaced by that ugly hole in the floor which
floods our rooms with furnace heat, with no glow of cheerful firelight,
no flicker of flame or changeful play of shadow out of which to weave
fantastic dreams and fancies. I once watched the dying out of one of
these fires in a great base burner, around which for years a large and
loving family had gathered. The furniture of the home had all been