son was down with diphtheria, and his wife with a young baby, and both
was very low. And between one and the other she was pretty near out of her
wits. We packed her up as quick as we could, and he was sent off by
express; and she says to me, 'Mis Kenny, you see how 't is. I've got this
house on my hands till May. There's no time to see to anything, and I've
got no heart to care; but if any one'll take it for the winter, well and
good; and I'll leave the sheets and table-cloths and everything in it,
because it may make a difference, and I don't mind about them nohow. And
if no one does take it, I'll just have to bear the loss,' says she. Poor
soul! she was in a world of trouble, surely."

"Do you know what rent she asks for the house?" said Clover, in whose mind
a vague plan was beginning to take shape.

"Twenty-five a month was what she paid; and she said she'd throw the
furniture in for the rest of the time, just to get rid of the rent."

Clover reflected. Twenty-five dollars a week was what they were paying at
Mrs. Marsh's. Could they take this house and live on the same sum, after
deducting the rent, and perhaps get this good-natured-looking woman to
come in for a certain number of hours and help do the work? She almost
fancied that they could if they kept no regular servant.

"I think I _would_ like to see the house," she said at last, after a
silent calculation and a scrutinizing look at Mrs. Kenny, who was a faded,
wiry, but withal kindly-looking person, shrewd and clean,--a North of
Ireland Protestant, as she afterward told Clover. In fact, her accent was
rather Scotch than Irish.

They went in. The front door opened into a minute hall, from which another
door led into a back hall with a staircase. There was a tiny sitting-room,
an equally tiny dining-room, a small kitchen, and above, two bedrooms and
a sort of unplastered space, which would answer to put trunks in. That was
all, save a little woodshed. Everything was bare and scanty and rather
particularly ugly. The sitting-room had a frightful paper of mingled
mustard and molasses tint, and a matted floor; but there was a good-sized
open fireplace for the burning of wood, in which two bricks did duty for
andirons, three or four splint and cane bottomed chairs, a lounge, and a
table, while the pipe of the large "Morning-glory" stove in the
dining-room expanded into a sort of drum in the chamber above. This
secured a warm sleeping place for Phil. Clover bega