second wife having died when her
step-daughter was eleven years old, leaving four little ones, who,
according to a common freak of nature, were more Indian than their
mother. The Douglas family grew poorer every year; but as every one was
poor there, poverty was respectable; and as all poverty is comparative,
they always esteemed themselves comfortable. For they had the old Agency
for a home, and it was in some respects the most dignified residence on
the island; and they had the remains of the furniture which the young
surgeon had brought with him from the East when his Alida was a bride,
and that was better than most of the furniture in use in the village.
The little stone fort on the height was, of course, the castle of the
town, and its commandant by courtesy the leader of society; but the
infantry officers who succeeded each other at this distant Northern post
brought little with them, camping out, as it were, in their
low-ceilinged quarters, knowing that another season might see them far
away. The Agency, therefore, preserved an air of dignity still, although
its roof leaked, its shutters rattled, although its plastering was gone
here and there, and its floors were uneven and decayed. Two of its
massive outside chimneys, clamped to the sides of the house, were half
down, looking like broken columns, monuments of the past; but there were
a number left. The Agency originally had bristled with chimneys, which
gave, on a small scale, a castellated air to its rambling outline.

Dr. Douglas's study was old, crowded, and comfortable; that is,
comfortable to those who have consciousness in their finger-ends, and no
uncertainty as to their feet; the great army of blunderers and
stumblers, the handle-everything, knock-over-everything people, who cut
a broad swath through the smaller furniture of a room whenever they
move, would have been troubled and troublesome there. The boys were
never admitted; but Tita, who stepped like a little cat, and Anne, who
had a deft direct aim in all her motions, were often present. The
comfort of the place was due to Anne; she shook out and arranged the
curtains, darned the old carpet, re-covered the lounge, polished the
andirons, and did all without disturbing the birds' wings, the shells,
the arrow-heads, the skins, dried plants, wampum, nets, bits of rock,
half-finished drawings, maps, books, and papers, which were scattered
about, or suspended from the walls. William Douglas, knowing some