but he did set everything by such truck. Don't turn out the
old things, I say, no more'n the old folks; but when it comes to makin'
a woman stan' quiddlin' round doin' work back side foremost, that beats
me."

"He'd have got me a stove in a minute," burst forth Amelia in haste,
"only he never knew I wanted it!"

"More fool you not to ha' said so!" commented aunt Ann, unwinding her
ball. "Well, I s'pose he would. John wa'n't like the common run o' men.
Great strong creatur' he was, but there was suthin' about him as soft as
a woman. His mother used to say his eyes 'd fill full o' tears when he
broke up a settin' hen. He was a good husband to you,--a good provider
an' a good friend."

Amelia was putting down her bread for its last rising, and her face
flushed.

"Yes," she said gently, "he _was_ good."

"But there!" continued aunt Ann, dismissing all lighter considerations,
"I dunno's that's any reason why you should bake in a tin kitchen, nor
why you should need to heat up the brick oven every week, when 't was
only done to please him, an' he ain't here to know. Now, 'Melia, le's
see what you could do. When you got the range in, 't would alter this
kitchen all over. Why don't you tear down that old-fashioned mantelpiece
in the fore-room?"

"I could have a marble one," responded Amelia in a low voice. She had
taken her sewing again, and she bent her head over it as if she were
ashamed. A flush had risen in her cheeks, and her hand trembled.

"Wide marble! real low down!" confirmed aunt Ann, in a tone of triumph.
"So fur as that goes, you could have a marble-top table." She laid down
her knitting, and looked about her, a spark of excited anticipation in
her eyes. All the habits of a lifetime urged her on to arrange and
rearrange, in pursuit of domestic perfection. People used to say, in her
first married days, that Ann Doby wasted more time in planning
conveniences about her house than she ever saved by them "arter she got
'em." In her active years, she was, in local phrase, "a driver." Up and
about early and late, she directed and managed until her house seemed to
be a humming hive of industry and thrift. Yet there was never anything
too urgent in that sway. Her beaming good-humor acted as a buffer
between her and the doers of her will; and though she might scold, she
never rasped and irritated. Nor had she really succumbed in the least to
the disease which had practically disabled her. It might confine her to
a c