It was a great day when Armida was pronounced well enough to eat breakfast in the kitchen.  Hobbling out with the aid of Theodore’s arm, she stepped on the threshold, and looked over to where Lucas stood by his window.  He greeted her with, “How are ye, Armidy?” but did not leave his place.

“It seems good to git out of my bedroom,” said Armida; then stopped, gazed about her, and sank into a convenient chair, exclaiming, “What does it mean?”

For both her and Lucas’s old stoves were gone, and a new one stood directly before the middle of the chimney, with its pipe running into the old pipe-hole that they used before the house was divided.  The coffee-pot steamed and bubbled over the fire, and a platter of ham and eggs stood on the hearth, while the table, set for breakfast, stood exactly in the centre of the room; the dividing line had been wiped out by the paint-brush, and Lucas’s side shone with yellow paint like her own.

“What does it mean?” she cried, trembling and clutching at Theodore’s arm.  Theodore said nothing, but slipped out of the room, and Lucas, after an awkward pause, said:  “Armidy, I wanted, if you was willin’, that we should quit doin’ as we have done and have things together as we used to.  Seems as if it would be pleasanter, and if you can forgive what I’ve done, I’ll try to make it up to ye.”

“Why, Lucas!” was all she could say.

“I know I hain’t done by ye like a brother,” said Lucas, anxious to get his self-imposed humiliation over, “and I’m sorry, and I’d like to begin over again.”

“I’m just as much a transgressor as you be,” said Armida, anxious to spare him.  “If I hadn’t said what I did, I ’spose you’d married Ianthe, and like as not had a family round ye.”

“I don’t know as I care now,” said Lucas; “I have felt hard to ye; but I see Ianthe last March”—­he laughed—­“and I didn’t mourn much that her name wa’n’t Huxter.  But that’s neither here nor there.  If you feel as if you could git along with two old brothers to look after instead of one, and overlook what’s passed—­”

“I’d be glad to, Lucas, if you won’t lay up anything against me.”

“Well, then;” and coming to her side Lucas bent over her, and, to her great surprise, kissed her.  Turning away before she could return the kiss, he opened the back door and called to Theodore.

As Theodore came in, Lucas said:  “If you had a shawl round ye, Armidy, wouldn’t you like to git out a minute before breakfast?” and without waiting for an answer, he brought her shawl and wrapped it round her, then put on her bonnet.

“Can’t you and I,” he said to Theodore, “make a chair and take her out?  You hain’t forgot sence you left school, hev you?”

Locking their hands together they formed what school-children call a chair, and lifting Armida between them, carried her through the hall, out at the front door, down the walk to the gate, and turned round, while Theodore bade his sister look up at the house.  Armida obeyed.  She saw the house glistening with paint, her side of it as white as Lucas’s, and blinds adorning her front windows, while the front porch, with new-laid floor and steps and bristling with brackets, was, in her eyes, the most imposing of entrances.