Luclarion herself was having a splendid time.

The first thing she did was to announce to Mrs. Scarup that she was out of her place for two weeks, and would like to come to her at her wages; which Mrs. Scarup received with some such awed and unbelieving astonishment as she might have done the coming of a legion of angels with Gabriel at their head.  And when one strong, generous human will, with powers of brain and body under it sufficient to some good work, comes down upon it as Luclarion did upon hers, there is what Gabriel and his angels stand for, and no less sent of God.

The second thing Luclarion did was to clean that “settin’-room fire-place,” to restore the pleasant brown color of its freestone hearth and jambs, to polish its rusty brasses till they shone like golden images of gods, and to lay an ornamental fire of chips and clean little sticks across the irons.  Then she took a wet broom and swept the carpet three times, and dusted everything with a damp duster; and then she advised Mrs. Scarup, whom the gruel had already cheered and strengthened, to be “helped down, and sit there in the easy-chair, for a change, and let her take her room in hand.”  And no doctor ever prescribed any change with better effect.  There are a good many changes that might be made for people, without sending them beyond their own doors.  But it isn’t the doctors who always know what change, or would dare to prescribe it if they did.

Mrs. Scarup was “helped down,” it seemed,—­really up, rather,—­into a new world.  Things had begun all over again.  It was worth while to get well, and take courage.  Those brasses shone in her face like morning suns.

“Well, I do declare to Man, Miss Grapp!” she exclaimed; and breath and expression failed together, and that was all she could say.

Up-stairs, Luclarion swept and rummaged.  She found the sheet and towel drawers, and made everything white and clean.  She laid fresh napkins over the table and bureau tops, and set the little things—­boxes, books, what not,—­daintily about on them.  She put a clean spread on the bed, and gathered up things for the wash she meant to have, with a recklessness that Mrs. Scarup herself would never have dared to use, in view of any “help” she ever expected to do it.

And then, with Pinkie to lend feeble assistance, Luclarion turned to in the kitchen.

It was a “clear treat,” she told Mrs. Ripwinkley afterward.  “Things had got to that state of mussiness, that you just began at one end and worked through to the other, and every inch looked new made over after you as you went along.”

She put the children out into the yard on the planks, and gave them tin pans and clothes-pins to keep house with, and gingerbread for their dinner.  She and Pinkie had cups of tea, and Mrs. Scarup had her gruel, and went up to bed again; and that was another new experience, and a third stage in her treatment and recovery.