Clarence had given up his own bedroom to Phil, and was to chum with his friend.  Some little attempt had been made to adorn the rooms which were meant for the ladies.  Clean towels had been spread over the pine shelves which did duty for dressing-tables, and on each stood a tumbler stuffed as full as it could hold with purple pentstemons.  Clover could not help laughing, yet there was something pathetic to her in the clumsy, man-like arrangement.  She relieved the tumbler by putting a few of the flowers in her dress, and went out again to the parlor, where Mrs. Hope sat by the fire, quizzing the two partners, who were hard at work setting their tea-table.

It was rather a droll spectacle,—­the two muscular young fellows creaking to and fro in their heavy boots, and taking such an infinitude of pains with their operations.  One would set a plate on the table, and the other would forthwith alter its position slightly, or lift and scrutinize a tumbler and dust it sedulously with a glass-towel.  Each spoon was polished with the greatest particularity before it was laid on the tray; each knife passed under inspection.  Visitors were not an every-day luxury in the High Valley, and too much care could not be taken for their entertainment, it seemed.

Supper was brought in by a Chinese cook in a pigtail, wooden shoes, and a blue Mother Hubbard, Choo Loo by name.  He was evidently a good cook, for the corn-bread and fresh mountain trout and the ham and eggs were savory to the last degree, and the flapjacks, with which the meal concluded, and which were eaten with a sauce of melted raspberry jelly, deserved even higher encomium.

“We are willing to be treated as company this first night,” observed Mrs. Hope; “but if you are going to keep us a week, you must let us make ourselves useful, and set the table and arrange the rooms for you.”

“We will begin to-morrow morning,” added Clover.  “May we, Clarence?  May we play that it is our house, and do what we like, and change about and arrange things?  It will be such fun.”

“Fire away!” said her cousin, calmly.  “The more you change the more we shall like it.  Geoff and I aren’t set in our ways, and are glad enough to be let off duty for a week.  The hut is yours just as long as you will stay; do just what you like with it.  Though we’re pretty good housekeepers too, considering; don’t you think so?”

“Do you believe he meant it?” asked Clover, confidentially afterward of Mrs. Hope.  “Do you think they really wouldn’t mind being tidied up a little?  I should so like to give that room a good dusting, if it wouldn’t vex them.”

“My dear, they will probably never know the difference except by a vague sense of improved comfort.  Men are dreadfully untidy, as a general thing, when left to themselves; but they like very well to have other people make things neat.”

“Mr. Templestowe told Phil that they go off early in the morning and don’t come back till breakfast at half-past seven; so if I wake early enough I shall try to do a little setting to rights before they come in.”