After luncheon, which was served in the dining-room, General Chessman and Aides-de-Camp Pettengill and Very held a counsel of war in the General’s private tent.  It was decided that the mornings should be devoted, for a while, at least, to shopping and visiting modistes and milliners.  Miss Very was also to give some of her time to visits to the libraries and the second-hand bookstores looking for books that would be of value to Alice in her work.  The afternoons were to be passed in conversation and in listening to Miss Very’s reading from the books that she had purchased or taken from the libraries.  The evenings were to be filled up with music, and the first one disclosed the pleasing fact that Miss Very had a rich, full contralto voice that had been well cultivated and that she could play Beethoven or the songs of the day with equal facility.

While the feminine trio were thus enjoying themselves in Boston with an admixture of work and play, Quincy was busily engaged at Nantucket in building a nest for them, as he called it.

He had found a large, old-fashioned house on the bluff at the north shore, overlooking the harbor, owned by Mrs. Gibson.  She was a widow with two children, one a boy of about nineteen, named Thomas, and the other a girl of twelve, named Dorothy, but generally designated as Tommy and Dolly.

Mrs. Gibson consented to let her second floor for a period of four months, and to supply them with meals.  The price was fixed upon, and Quincy knew he had been unusually lucky in securing so desirable a location at such a reasonable price.

There were three rooms, one a large front room, with a view of the harbor, and back of it two sleeping rooms, looking out upon a large garden at the rear of the house.  Quincy mentally surveyed the large room and marked the places with a piece of chalk upon the carpet where the piano and the bookcase were to go.  Then he decided that the room needed a lounge and a desk with all necessary fixtures and stationery for Rosa to work at.  There were some stiff-backed chairs in the room, but he concluded that a low easy-chair, like the one Alice had at home, and a couple of wicker rocking chairs, which would be cool and comfortable during the hot summer days, were absolutely essential.

He then returned to Boston, hired an upright piano and purchased the other articles, including a comfortable office-chair to go with the desk.  He was so afraid that he would forget some article of stationery that he made a list and checked it off.  But this did not satisfy him.  He spent a whole morning in different stationery stores looking over their stocks to make sure that he had omitted nothing.  The goods were packed and shipped by express to Mrs. Thomas Gibson, Nantucket, Mass.  Then, and not till then, did Quincy seek his aunt’s residence with the intelligence that the nest was builded and ready for the birds.  When he informed the ladies that everything