full of pots and pans and
miscellaneous articles of household, chiefly kitchen, furniture.

Ruby and Minnie laughed at this, and the widow looked perplexed, but
perfectly happy and at her ease, for she knew that whatever
arrangement the captain should make, it would be agreeable in the end
to all parties.

"The seaman Ogilvy and I," continued the captain, "have gone over the
fogs'l" (meaning the forecastle) "together, and we find that, by the
use of mops, buckets, water, and swabs, the place can be made clean.
By the use of paper, paint, and whitewash, it can be made
respectable; and, by the use of furniture, pictures, books, and
baccy, it can be made comfortable. Now, the question that I've got to
propound this day to the judge and jury is--Why not?"

Upon mature consideration, the judge and jury could not answer "why
not?" therefore the thing was fixed and carried out and the captain
thereafter dwelt for years in the scullery, and the inmates of the
cottage spent so much of their time in the scullery that it became,
as it were, the parlour, or boudoir, or drawing-room of the place.
When, in course of time, a number of small Brands came to howl and
tumble about the cottage, they naturally gravitated towards the
scullery, which then virtually became the nursery, with a stout old
seaman, of the name of Ogilvy, usually acting the part of head nurse.
His duties were onerous, by reason of the strength of constitution,
lungs, and muscles of the young Brands, whose ungovernable desire to
play with that dangerous element from which heat is evolved,
undoubtedly qualified them for the honorary title of Fire-Brands.

With the proceeds of the jewel case Ruby bought a little coasting
vessel, with which he made frequent and successful voyages. "Absence
makes the heart grow fonder," no doubt, for Minnie grew fonder of
Ruby every time he went away, and every time he came back. Things
prospered with our hero, and you may be sure that he did not forget
his old friends of the lighthouse. On the contrary, he and his wife
became frequent visitors at the signal-tower, and the families of the
lighthouse-keepers felt almost as much at home in "the cottage" as
they did in their own houses. And each keeper, on returning from his
six weeks' spell on the rock to take his two weeks' spell at the
signal-tower, invariably made it his first business, _after_ kissing
his wife and children, to go up to the Brands and smoke a pipe in the
scullery w