let's have things cheerful just as glad to see you, Washington, as if

you'd been lost a century and we'd found you again!"

By this time the Colonel was conveying a lighted match into a poor little

stove. Then he propped the stove door to its place by leaning the poker

against it, for the hinges had retired from business. This door framed

a small square of isinglass, which now warmed up with a faint glow.

Mrs. Sellers lit a cheap, showy lamp, which dissipated a good deal of the

gloom, and then everybody gathered into the light and took the stove into

close companionship.

The children climbed all over Sellers, fondled him, petted him, and were

lavishly petted in return. Out from this tugging, laughing, chattering

disguise of legs and arms and little faces, the Colonel's voice worked

its way and his tireless tongue ran blithely on without interruption;

and the purring little wife, diligent with her knitting, sat near at hand

and looked happy and proud and grateful; and she listened as one who

listens to oracles and, gospels and whose grateful soul is being

refreshed with the bread of life. Bye and bye the children quieted down

to listen; clustered about their father, and resting their elbows on his

legs, they hung upon his words as if he were uttering the music of the

spheres.

A dreary old hair-cloth sofa against the wall; a few damaged chairs; the

small table the lamp stood on; the crippled stove--these things

constituted the furniture of the room. There was no carpet on the floor;

The Gilded Age