vered.

"Oh, dear me!" he cried, aloud. "Oh, dear!"

A voice outside his chamber door made answer.

"Be you awake, Mr. Bangs?" asked Primmie. "Here's your things. Doctor
Powers he come up and got 'em last night after you'd fell asleep and me
and Miss Martha we hung 'em alongside the kitchen stove. They're dried
out fine. Miss Martha says you ain't to get up, though, till the doctor
comes. I'll leave your things right here on the floor.... Or shall I put
'em inside?"

"Oh, no, no! Don't, don't! I mean put them on the floor--ah--outside.
Thank you, thank you."

"Miss Martha said if you was awake to ask you if you felt better."

"Oh, yes--yes, much better, thank you. Thank you--yes."

He waited in some trepidation, until he heard Primmie clump downstairs.
Then he opened the door a crack and retrieved his "things." They were
not only dry, but clean, and the majority of the wrinkles had been
pressed from his trousers and coat. The mud had even been brushed from
his shoes. Not that Galusha noticed all this just then. He was busy
dressing, having a nervous dread that the unconventional Primmie might
find she had forgotten something and come back to bring it.

When he came downstairs there was no one in the sitting room and he had
an opportunity to look about. It was a pleasant apartment, that sitting
room, especially on a morning like this, with the sunshine streaming in
through the eastern windows, windows full of potted plants set upon wire
frames, with hanging baskets of trailing vines and a canary in a cage
about them. There were more plants in the western windows also, for the
sitting room occupied the whole width of the house at that point.
The pictures upon the wall were almost all of the sea, paintings of
schooners, and one of the "Barkentine Hawkeye, of Boston. Captain James
Phipps, leaving Surinam, August 12, 1872." The only variations from the
sea pictures were a "crayon-enlarged" portrait of a sturdy man with an
abundance of unruly gray hair and a chin beard, and a chromo labeled
"Sunset at Niagara Falls." The portrait bore sufficient resemblance to
Miss Martha Phipps to warrant Galusha's guess that it was intended to
portray her father, the "Cap'n Jim" of whom the doctor had spoken. The
chromo of "Sunset at Niagara Falls" was remarkable chiefly for its lack
of resemblance either to Niagara or a sunset.

He was inspecting this work of art when Miss Phipps entered the room.
She was surprised to see him.