many years; far more than her husband, she made Ethel think of life in the timberlands when her husband and she were young. He spoke often of those old days and she seldom; but his talk was of the millions of feet of lumber which he had made a tract of land furnish to the saws, while her few remembrances were of homely happenings like weddings and births and deaths of the people of the old forest. Ethel had not seen her grandmother since her father had died; and she had not realized till now that her grandmother was dearer to her than any one living. So she cried a little as she kissed her soft, wrinkled cheek. "There; there, Debsie; Debsie," the old lady patted and comforted her, calling the granddaughter by the daughter's name; and her own old eyes were wet.
Ethel shook hands with Miss Platt and said a few words to the Indians. Sam bore firewood through the hall and up the stairs, and she followed to the room on the second floor which always had been hers,—a large, pleasant room, almost square, with windows on the south and on the west. It was heated by a big iron register in the center of the floor which brought hot air from the wood furnace in the basement; but the room also possessed a Franklin stove in which maple logs were burning hotly.
Sam put down his load and officiously adjusted the drafts of the stove, delaying to speak to Ethel alone.
"Look here; I talk too much?"
"Oh, no," Ethel denied.
"Don't want to make you no trouble," Sam apologized handsomely, and departed. Then Ethel's grandmother came in, carrying a tray with hot cocoa and a dish of rice and a plate of rolls and fruit preserve. Ethel hugged her again and thanked her; and the old
