The name had been Emily Howes’ choice.  She and Mrs. Barnes had carried on a lengthy and voluminous correspondence and the selection of a name had been left to Emily.  To her also had been intrusted the selection of wallpapers, furniture and the few pictures which Thankful had felt able to afford.  These were but few, for the cost of repairing and refitting had been much larger than the original estimate.  The fifteen hundred dollars raised on the mortgage had gone and of the money obtained by the sale of the cranberry bog shares—­Mrs. Pearson’s legacy—­nearly half had gone also.  Estimates are one thing and actual expenditures are another, a fact known to everyone who has either built a house or rebuilt one, and more than once during the repairing and furnishing process Thankful had repented of her venture and wished she had not risked the plunge.  But, having risked it, backing out was impossible.  Neither was it possible to stop half-way.  As she said to Captain Obed, “There’s enough half-way decent boardin’-houses and hotels in this neighborhood now.  There’s about as much need of another of that kind as there is of an icehouse at the North Pole.  Either this boardin’-house of mine must be the very best there can be, price considered, or it mustn’t be at all.  That’s the way I look at it.”

The captain had, of course, agreed with her.  His advice had been invaluable.  He had helped in choosing carpenters and painters and it was owing to his suggestion that Mrs. Barnes had refrained from engaging an East Wellmouth young woman to help in the kitchen.

“You could find one, of course,” said the captain.  “There’s two or three I could think of right off now who would probably take the job, but two out of the three wouldn’t be much account anyhow, and the only one that would is Sarah Mullet and she’s engaged to a Trumet feller.  Now let alone the prospect of Sarah’s gettin’ married and leavin’ you ’most any time, there’s another reason for not hirin’ her.  She’s the everlastin’est gossip in Ostable County, and that’s sayin’ somethin’.  What Sarah don’t know about everybody’s private affairs she guesses and she always guesses out loud.  Inside of a fortnight she’d have all you ever done and a whole lot you never thought of doin’ advertised from Race P’int to Sagamore.  She’s a reg’lar talkin’ foghorn, if there was such a thing—­only a foghorn shuts down in clear weather and she don’t shut down, day or night.  Talks in her sleep, I shouldn’t wonder.  If I was you, Mrs. Barnes, I wouldn’t bother with any help from ’round here.  I’d hire a girl from Boston, or somewheres; then you could be skipper of your own ship.”

Thankful, after thinking the matter over, decided that the advice was good.  The difficulty, of course, was in determining the “somewhere” from which the right sort of servant, one willing to work for a small wage, might be obtained.  At length she wrote to a Miss Coffin, once a nurse in Middleboro but now matron of an orphans’ home in Boston.  Miss Coffin’s reply was to the effect that she had, in her institution, a girl who might in time prove to be just the sort which her friend desired.