as the little kitchen had ever seen. Bread and butter were lacking, but
there was quince preserve, drawn from some hidden hoard, the apples and
pork, and smoking tea. Mrs. Wadleigh's spirits rose. Home was even
better than her dreams had pictured it. She told her strange guest all
about her darter Lucy and her darter Ann's children; and he listened,
quite dazed and utterly speechless.

"There!" she said at last, rising, "I dunno's I ever eat such a meal
o' victuals in my life, but I guess it's better'n many a poor soldier
used to have. Now, if you've got some wood to chop, you go an' do it,
an' I'll clear up this kitchen; it's a real hurrah's nest, if ever
there was one!"

All that afternoon, the stranger chopped wood, pausing, from time to
time, to look from the shed door down the country road; and Mrs.
Wadleigh, singing "Fly like a Youthful," "But O! their end, their
dreadful end," and like melodies which had prevailed when she "set in
the seats," flew round, indeed, and set the kitchen in immaculate
order. Evidently her guest had seldom left that room. He had slept
there on the lounge. He had eaten his potatoes there, and smoked his
pipe.

When the early dusk set in, and Mrs. Wadleigh had cleared away their
supper of baked potatoes and salt fish, again with libations of quince,
she drew up before the shining stove, and put her feet on the hearth.

"Here!" she called to the man, who was sitting uncomfortably on one
corner of the woodbox, and eying her with the same embarrassed
watchfulness. "You draw up, too! It's the best time o' the day now,
'tween sunset an' dark."