all about that Anne Leavitt."

Nancy's coaxing tone covered the fire that was within her heart. To
herself she was saying: "The old iceberg--I'll thaw her out now or
never!"

B'lindy set her pie down; her voice warmed a little. She rested her
hands on her hips and assumed what Webb would have called her "speakin'
air."

"Well, now, if it's _pryin'_ B'lindy Guest don't know nothin', but if
it's hist'ry--Webb's just about right. Justin Leavitt brought Anne
Leavitt down from Montreal 'slong ago as 1740, when there was first a
settlement up to Isle la Motte. He bought most this whole Island, I
guess, from the Indians and when they wanted a home Anne Leavitt laid
her finger on this very spot we're sittin' on. Justin built the house
out of the stone they dug from the Island itself. And she planned that
there mantel--just set her heart on it and it seems how a Leavitt could
have anything--anyways they hed it made in England and brought over
here jest's she planned with Happy House spelled on it all carved like
'tis now. And she helped put it up with her own little hands. The
house's been changed a lot sence but no one's ever touched that mantel!"

"And then she died," put in Nancy, breathlessly.

"Yes--she was just nothin' more'n a child and delicate at that and
wa'n't built to stand them pi'neer hardships, hidin' from the Indians
and eatin' corn and roots and the like when she was used to food as
good as the king's, for noble blood she had--the book over at North
Hero says so! She just seemed to live 'til that there mantel come and
she saw it with her very own eyes. She was brave as any man and she
hung on spite of everything 'til she'd got that done and then jest 'sif
she was tuckered out she laid down and died!"

"In what room, B'lindy?"

"What's now the guest room--so the book says." B'lindy ignored Nancy's
stifled, "Oh, goodness me!" "That next year the Indians attacked all
the settlers and Justin Leavitt and his brother Remembrance was killed
along with a half-dozen other pi'neers beatin' back the red men while
Robert's wife and the other women folk escaped in an open boat across
the lake and Robert's wife hid little Justin under her cape. Then
Happy House was empty 'til little Justin growed up and came back."

"And had the Indians gone then?"

"No, but they were friendly like and a good thing it was for they'd
never been worse en'mies than the Yorkers was then. I guess Ethan
Allen, and his Gree