n to think that they
could make it do.

Mrs. Kenny, who evidently considered the house as a wonder of luxury and
convenience, opened various cupboards, and pointed admiringly to the glass
and china, the kitchen tins and utensils, and the cotton sheets and
pillow-cases which they respectively held.

"There's water laid on," she said; "you don't have to pump any. Here's
the washtubs in the shed. That's a real nice tin boiler for the
clothes,--I never see a nicer. Mis Starkey had that heater in the
dining-room set the very week before she went away. 'Winter's coming on,'
she says, 'and I must see about keeping my husband warm;' never thinking,
poor thing, how 't was to be."

"Does this chimney draw?" asked the practical Clover; "and does the
kitchen stove bake well?"

"First-rate. I've seen Mis Starkey take her biscuits out many a time,--as
nice a brown as ever you'd want; and the chimney don't smoke a mite. They
kep' a wood fire here in May most all the time, so I know."

Clover thought the matter over for a day or two, consulted with Dr. Hope,
and finally decided to try the experiment. No. 13 was taken, and Mrs.
Kenny engaged for two days' work each week, with such other occasional
assistance as Clover might require. She was a widow, it seemed, with one
son, who, being employed on the railroad, only came home for the nights.
She was glad of a regular engagement, and proved an excellent stand-by and
a great help to Clover, to whom she had taken a fancy from the start; and
many were the good turns which she did for love rather than hire for "my
little Miss," as she called her.

To Phil the plan seemed altogether delightful. This was natural, as all
the fun fell to his share and none of the trouble; a fact of which Mrs.
Hope occasionally reminded him. Clover persisted, however, that it was all
fair, and that she got lots of fun out of it too, and didn't mind the
trouble. The house was so absurdly small that it seemed to strike every
one as a good joke; and Clover's friends set themselves to help in the
preparations, as if the establishment in Piute Street were a kind of
baby-house about which they could amuse themselves at will.

It is a temptation always to make a house pretty, but Clover felt herself
on honor to spend no more than was necessary. Papa had trusted her, and
she was resolved to justify his trust. So she bravely withstood her
desire for several things which would have been great improvements so far
as