One morning about ten days after the departure of Walter the good people of Glenwood were greatly surprised at the unusual confusion which seemed to pervade the homestead.  The blinds were taken off, windows taken out, carpets taken up, and where so lately physicians, clergymen, and death had officiated, were now seen carpenters, masons, and other workmen.  Many were the surmises as to the cause of all this; and one old lady, more curious than the rest, determined upon a friendly call, to ascertain, if possible, what was going on.

She found Mrs. Hamilton with her sleeves rolled up, and her hair tucked under a black cap, consulting with a carpenter about enlarging her bedroom and adding to it a bathing-room.  Being received but coldly by the mistress of the house, she descended to the basement, where she was told by Aunt Polly that “the blinds were going to be repainted, an addition built, the house turned wrong-side out, and Cain raised generally.”

“It’s a burning shame,” said Aunt Polly, warmed up by her subject and the hot oven into which she was thrusting loaves of bread and pies.  “It’s a burning shame—­a tearin’ down and a goin’ on this way, and marster not cold in his grave.  Miss Lenora, with all her badness, says it’s disgraceful, but he might ha’ know’d it. I did.  I know’d it the fust time she came here a nussin’.  I don’t see what got into him to have her.  Polly Pepper, without any larnin’, never would ha’ done such a thing,” continued she, as the door closed upon her visitor, who was anxious to carry the gossip back to the village.

It was even as Aunt Polly had said.  Mrs. Hamilton, who possessed a strong propensity for pulling down and building up, and who would have made an excellent carpenter, had long had an earnest desire for improving the homestead; and now that there was no one to prevent her, she went to work with a right good will, saying to Lenora, who remonstrated with her upon the impropriety of her conduct, that “she was merely carrying out dear Mr. Hamilton’s plans,” who had proposed making these changes before his death.

“Dear Mr. Hamilton!” repeated Lenora, “very dear has he become to you, all at once.  I think if you had always manifested a little more affection for him and his, they might not have been where they now are.”

“Seems to me you take a different text from what you did some months ago,” said Mrs. Hamilton; “but perhaps you don’t remember the time?”

“I remember it well,” answered Lenora, “and quite likely, with your training, I should do the same again.  We were poor, and I wished for a more elegant home.  I fancied that Margaret Hamilton was proud and had slighted me, and I longed for revenge; but when I knew her I liked her better, and when I saw that she was not to be trampled down by you or me, my hatred of her turned to admiration.  The silly man who has paid the penalty of his weakness, I always despised; but when I saw how fast the gray