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All well an' 'arty?" Three or four of the party gave gruff response. The others sat smoking silently. One end of the table was unoccupied, and to this Peke drew a couple of rush-bottomed chairs with sturdy oak backs, and bade Helmsley sit down beside him. "It be powerful warm to-night!" he said, taking off his cap, and showing a disordered head of rough dark hair, sprinkled with grey.

Up-stairs the tiny chambers were decked with spotless white dimity, and rush-bottomed chairs stood in each window, with a strip of the same old carpet by either bedside; and in the kitchen the blue settle that had stood by the Vermont fireside now defended this lesser hearth from the draught of the door, and held under the seat thereof sundry ironing-sheets, the blanket belonging to them, and good store of ticking and worsted holders.

Weston did not, nor will we, delay to glance at the well-swept earthen floor, and the bright tins in rows on the dresser, but immediately addressed himself to Aunt Peggy, who, seated in a rush-bottomed chair in the corner, and rocking herself backwards and forwards, was talking rapidly. And oh! what a figure had Aunt Peggy; or rather, what a face.

For the rest of the evening the silent presence in the room above affected the household; the half-curious servants and ranch hands spoke in whispers in the passages, and at evening prayers, in the dining room, Seth Rivers, kneeling before and bowed over a rush-bottomed chair whose legs were clutched by his strong hands, included "the stranger within our gates" in his regular supplications.

You would like to get up, I know, and refresh your face and hands with a little water. Oh! you will see how well I have thought it out. I need not interfere with you at all, and when you make your little bit of toilette, you will feel quite alone... just as if the old man was not there." He began busying himself about the room, dragging the rickety, rush-bottomed chairs forward.

And the dresser, the settles, the oblong table, the rush-bottomed chairs, the big chest by the side wall, all looked sturdily genuine; venerably conscious of the boast that they had defied the greedy collector and would continue to elude his most insidious approaches. Here, they were in their proper surroundings.

Wondering what had come over her, she shut the door and laid down without undressing herself. She slept heavily for several hours, and waked with the thought of Aunt Peggy's strange talk pressing upon her. She determined not to go to bed again, but opened the door and fixed the old rush-bottomed chair within it.

Suddenly she heard the loud cracking of breaking wood. There was a blaze of paper from the fireplace, illuminating all the room, and some light pieces he was throwing on kindled quickly. He was breaking them she looked it was one of the rush-bottomed chairs. "What are you doing?" she cried, leaning suddenly far forward. "Making a good fire," he answered.

There the wretches sat up on end, smoking and talking vehemently, till sheer exhaustion came to my aid, and I fell asleep; but the edges of the rush-bottomed chairs speedily became so sharp that a recumbent posture ceased to be possible, and I sat dozing on one chair.

She retreated to the landing-place till he had opened the shutters, and then saw an apartment the most forlorn she had ever beheld, containing no other furniture than a ragged stuff bed, two worn-out rush-bottomed chairs, an old wooden box, and a bit of broken glass which was fastened to the wall by two bent nails.