Shahweetah, Sept. 26, 1817.

“Dear Rose,

“I am all alone, like you.  Will you come here and let us do the best we can together?  I am at a place you don’t like, but I shall not stay here all the time, and I think you can bear it with me for a while.  I shall have things arranged so as to make you as comfortable as you can be in such straitened quarters, and expect you will come as soon as you can get a good opportunity.  Whether you come by boat or not, part of the way, you will have to take the stage-coach from Pimpernel here; and you must stop at the little village of Mountain Spring, opposite Wut-a-qut-o.  From there you can get here by wagon or boat.  I can’t send for you, for I have neither one nor the other.

“Yours truly, dear Rose,

“Elizabeth Haye.”

With the letter in her hand, Elizabeth went forth to the kitchen.

“Karen, is there any sort of a cabinet-maker at Mountain Spring?”

“What’s that?” said Karen.

“Is there any sort of a cabinet-maker at the village? —­ a cabinet-maker, —­ somebody that makes tables and bedsteads, and that sort of thing?”

“A furnitur’ shop?” said Karen.

“Yes —­ something of that kind.  Is there such a thing in Mountain Spring?”

Karen shook her head.

“They don’t make nothin’ at Mountain Spring.”

“Where do the people get their tables and chairs? where do they go for them?”

“They go ’most any place,” said Karen; —­ “sometimes they goes to Pimpernel, —­ and maybe to Starlings, or to Deerford; they don’t go much nowheres.”

“Can I get such things at Pimpernel?”

“If you was there, you could, I s’pose,” said Karen.

“Could Anderese get a horse and cart at the village, to go for me?”

“I guess he can find a wagon round somewheres,” said Karen.  “You couldn’t go in a cart handy.”

“I! —­ no, but I want to send him, to fetch home a load of things.”

“How’ll he know what to get?”

“I will tell him.  Couldn’t he do it?”

“If he knowed what was wanted, he could,” said Karen.  “Me and him ’ll go, Miss Lizzie, and we’ll do it.”

“You, Karen!  I don’t want to send you.”

“Guess I’ll do the best,” said the old woman.  “Anderese mightn’t know what to fetch.  What you want, Miss Lizzie?”

Elizabeth thought a moment whether she should ask Winthrop to send up the things for her; but she could not bear to do it.

“I want a bedstead, Karen, in the first place.”

“What sort’ll a one?”

“The best you can find.”

“That’ll be what’ll spend the most money,” said Karen musingly.

“I don’t care about that, but the nicest sort you can meet with.  And a bureau —­”

“What’s that?” said Karen.  “I dun’ know what that means.”

“To hold clothes —­ with drawers —­ like that in my room.”