married.  There ain’t another woman in the whole town whose husband ain’t got half the means you have but what’s got better.  It’s all the room Nanny’s got to have her company in; an’ there ain’t one of her mates but what’s got better, an’ their fathers not so able as hers is.  It’s all the room she’ll have to be married in.  What would you have thought, father, if we had had our weddin’ in a room no better than this?  I was married in my mother’s parlor, with a carpet on the floor, an’ stuffed furniture, an’ a mahogany card-table.  An’ this is all the room my daughter will have to be married in.  Look here, father!”

Sarah Penn went across the room as though it were a tragic stage.  She flung open a door and disclosed a tiny bedroom, only large enough for a bed and bureau, with a path between.  “There, father,” said she—­“there’s all the room I’ve had to sleep in forty year.  All my children were born there—­the two that died, an’ the two that’s livin’.  I was sick with a fever there.”

She stepped to another door and opened it.  It led into the small, ill-lighted pantry.  “Here,” said she, “is all the buttery I’ve got—­every place I’ve got for my dishes, to set away my victuals in, an’ to keep my milk-pans in.  Father, I’ve been takin’ care of the milk of six cows in this place, an’ now you’re goin’ to build a new barn, an’ keep more cows, an’ give me more to do in it.”

She threw open another door.  A narrow crooked flight of stairs wound upward from it.  “There, father,” said she, “I want you to look at the stairs that go up to them two unfinished chambers that are all the places our son an’ daughter have had to sleep in all their lives.  There ain’t a prettier girl in town nor a more ladylike one than Nanny, an’ that’s the place she has to sleep in.  It ain’t so good as your horse’s stall; it ain’t so warm an’ tight.”

Sarah Penn went back and stood before her husband.  “Now, father,” said she, “I want to know if you think you’re doin’ right an’ accordin’ to what you profess.  Here, when we was married, forty year ago, you promised me faithful that we should have a new house built in that lot over in the field before the year was out.  You said you had money enough, an’ you wouldn’t ask me to live in no such place as this.  It is forty year now, an’ you’ve been makin’ more money, an’ I’ve been savin’ of it for you ever sence, an’ you ain’t built no house yet.  You’ve built sheds an’ cow-houses an’ one new barn, an’ now you’re goin’ to build another.  Father, I want to know if you think it’s right.  You’re lodgin’ your dumb beasts better than you are your own flesh an’ blood.  I want to know if you think it’s right.”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”