YOU are to imagine much that was done inside that long, low house on the hill during the next three weeks. A great deal can be done in three weeks’ time. What was actually accomplished would fill a good-sized volume; so it is well that you are to imagine instead of read about it. A great many wheels of progress were started during that very first day—Ruth among the stores, Judge Burnham among the paper-hangers, painters and draymen, Susan in the Erskine attic, sorting out and packing many things that, according to Judge Erskine’s orders, were Ruth’s exclusive property. By the time the five o’clock train received the three, they were tired and satisfied.

Tired though they were, it was as late as midnight before all the household settled into rest. Susan dropped into her place as naturally as though it had been waiting for her all these years. The Ferris family were departed bag and baggage, and the two Burnhams left behind were red-eyed and disconsolate. Why not? The Ferrises were the only friends they had ever known. Susan put a sympathetic arm around one and kissed the other before she had been in the house five minutes, and Ruth remembered with dismay that she had not thought of doing such a thing. And, indeed, if I must tell you the truth concerning her, it seemed almost an impossible thing to do! She had been for so many years in the habit of bestowing her kisses rarely and to such an exceedingly limited number of persons. Then they betook themselves, Susan and Seraphina, to the kitchen. Confusion reigned. So it did all over the house, except in the locked-up purity of Ruth’s two rooms. But before midnight there was a comfortable place for Susan to sleep and most satisfactory preparations in line for a breakfast the next morning.

It was that next morning which gave the two Burnham girls their first touch of a cultured home. There was a little room, conveniently situated as regarded the kitchen, which the instinct of taste had made Ruth select at the first glance as a dining-room. Thither she and Susan repaired early in the evening to make a survey.

“It needs painting,” said Susan, scanning the wood-work critically, “and papering; and then, with a pretty carpet, it will be just the thing. But, in the meantime, it is clean, and we can set the breakfast-table here to-morrow morning, can’t we?”

“If we can get it in here to set,” Ruth answered, in a dubious tone. “It is a long, horribly-shaped table, and none of our furniture will be here, you know.”

“Oh, I see my way out of that. There is a little table in that pantry, or milk-room, or whatever is the name of it, that will do nicely for a dining-table until we get settled; and, Ruth, shall we have some of my muffins for breakfast? You remember Judge Burnham used to like them when we gave them to him occasionally for tea. Oh, girls! I can make delicious muffins, and if you are both down here by six o’clock to-morrow morning I will teach you how, the first thing I do.”

This last to the two bewildered girls, who stood waiting to see what astonishing thing would happen next. As for Ruth, she went up-stairs to that gem of a room, smiling over the strangeness of the thought that Susan was down-stairs in their kitchen, hers and Judge Burnham’s, planning with his daughters to have muffins for breakfast! Also, she thought, with a sense of satisfaction, of the great trunk packed with silver, rare old pieces of her mother’s own, which had been held sacred for her during all these years, and of the smaller and newer trunk containing table drapery, which was a marvel of fineness and whiteness. Both trunks had journeyed hither several days ago, and had this night been opened to secure certain things which Susan’s morning plans had called for.

So it was to the little room that the family came the next morning, with its south window, into which the September sun slanted its rays cheerily. The room itself was carpetless, and the chairs were wooden, and there was no other attempt at furniture. But the table, laid in snowy whiteness, and the napkins large and fine and of delicate pattern, and the silver service gleaming before Ruth’s place, and the silver forks and solid silver spoons, and the glittering goblets and delicate china—for Susan had actually unpacked and washed and arranged Ruth’s mother’s china—to say nothing of the aroma of coffee floating in the air, and mingling not unpleasantly with the whiff of a vase of autumn roses which blushed before Ruth’s plate.

All these things were a lesson in home refinements such as a week of talking would never have accomplished, and which the Burnham girls sat down to for the first time in their lives. It was curious to notice the effect on them. Their conspicuous calicoes and stretched-back hair and ungainly shoes were still painfully visible. But, for the first time, apparently, it dawned upon them that things didn’t match. They surveyed the table, which was as a picture to them, and then, with instinctive movements, essayed to hide their awkward shoes under their too short dresses, and blushed painfully over the impossibility of doing so. Ruth noticed it, and smiled. They would be ready for her hand, she fancied, when she came to an hour of leisure to arrange for them.

That breakfast scene was a cheery one. So much of home had already entered into its elements that Judge Burnham cordially pronounced Susan a fairy, and she as genially responded that she was a most substantial one, and had had two substantial helpers, with a meaning glance toward the girls.

“Indeed!” he said, in kindly tone, and then he glanced toward them.

That was a very pleasant way of showing good-will. The contrast between this breakfast and the one to which they sat down but the morning before was certainly very striking And, though the girls blushed painfully, the tone in which he had spoken, and the glance which accompanied his remark, did more for those daughters than all their father’s lectures had accomplished.

Directly the muffins and the broiled steak and the amber coffee were discussed, and, the meal concluded, business in that house commenced. Thereafter it was a scene of organized disorder. The girls, under Susan’s lead, proved, notwithstanding Mrs. Judge Erskine’s surmise, very “efficient” helpers. They could not enter a room properly, they could not use the King’s English very well, and they knew nothing about the multitude of little accomplishments with which the girls of their age usually consume time. But it transpired that they could wash windows, and “paints,” and sweep walls, and even nail carpets. They were both quick-witted and skillful over many of these employments, and the hearty laugh which occasionally rung out from their vicinity, when Susan was with them, showed plainly that they had lost their fear of her; but their embarrassment, where either their father or Ruth was concerned, did not decrease. And, indeed, in the whirl of plans which had recently come upon them, these two had little leisure to cultivate the daughters’ acquaintance. Ruth, after a few attempts at helping, discreetly left the ordering of the hired helpers to Susan’s skillful hands, and accompanied her husband on daily shopping excursions, where her good taste and good sense were equally called into action.

In the course of time, and when there is a full purse to command skillful helpers, the time need not be so very long drawn out. There came a morning when it would have done your comfort-loving heart good to have walked with Judge Burnham and his wife through the reconstructed house! Nothing showy; nothing really expensive, as that term is used in the fashionable world, had been attempted. Ruth’s tastes were too well cultured for that. She knew, perfectly, that what was quite in keeping with the lofty ceilings and massive windows of her father’s house would be ridiculously out of place here. As you passed with her from room to room you would have realized that nothing looked out of place. Perhaps in the girl’s room as much thought had been expended as in any place in that house.

Ruth had been amazed, not to say horrified, on the occasion of her first visit to their room, to find that it was carpetless, curtainless, and, I had almost said, furnitureless! An old-fashioned, high-post bedstead, destitute of any pretense of beauty, and a plain-painted stand, holding a tin basin and a broken-nosed milk pitcher! To Ruth, whose one experience of life had to do with her father’s carefully furnished house, where the servants’ rooms were well supplied with the comforts, to say nothing of the luxuries of the toilet, this looked simply barbarous. Judge Burnham, too, was shocked and subdued. It had been years since he had been a caller in his daughters’ room, and he had seemed to think that magic of some sort must have supplied their wants. “I furnished money whenever it was asked for,” he said, regarding Ruth with a sort of appealing air. “Now, that I think of it, they were never extravagant in their demands; but I supposed I gave them enough. At least, when I thought about it at all, I assured myself that the Ferrises would certainly not be afraid to ask for more, if more was needed.”

“The difficulty with the Ferris family was, that they had no tastes to expend money for,” Ruth said, quietly, “but you can not wonder that the girls are not just what we would like to see them. They certainly have had no surroundings of any sort that would educate them in your direction.”

After this talk he entered with heartiness into the plans for that room, and when the delicate blue and pale gold carpet was laid—and it reminded one of a sunset in a pure sky—and the white drapery was looped with blue ribbons, rural fashion, and the gold-banded china was gracefully disposed on the toilet case, and the dressing-bureau was adorned with all the little daintinesses which Ruth understood so well how to scatter, even to a blue and gold vase full of sweet-scented blossoms, and the pretty cottage bedstead was luxuriously draped in spotless white, plump pillows, ruffled pillow shams, all complete, Ruth stood back and surveyed the entire effect with the most intense satisfaction. What said the girls? Well, they said nothing. But their blazing cheeks and suspiciously wet eyes looked volumes, and for several days they stepped about that room in a tiptoe fashion which would have amused Ruth, had she seen it. They could not rally from the feeling that everything about them was so delicate and pure that to breathe upon, or touch, would be to mar a work of art.

Meantime, other matters had been progressing. Ruth had lain awake half of one night and studied the immortal question of dress. She had met and battled with, and conquered half a dozen forms of pride, and then had boldly announced at the next morning’s breakfast-table, the following:

“Judge Burnham, the girls and I want to go to the city to attend to some dress-making. Shall we go in that mail-wagon, or how?”

Before this, I should have explained to you that Judge Burnham had been, for some days, in an active state of trying horses, examining carriages, and interviewing professional drivers. Also, several horses and carriages had waited on them for trial, so that Ruth had taken several rides to the cars on trial, and had once suggested that perhaps it would be as economical a way of keeping a carriage as any, this spending the season in making a choice. Therefore Judge Burnham laughed as he answered:

“Why, no, there is to be a trial span here in time for the ten o’clock train. I was about to propose a ride in honor of that occasion. Are you going into town for the day?”

Ruth laughed.

“For the week, I am afraid. We shall probably be detained at the dressmaker’s for some time, and, after that, I have many errands to do.”

Now the form in which her pride had met her last, was the shrinking from going to town, and above all, going to the fashionable dress-making and millinery establishments with those strange-looking companions, for a critical survey of their wardrobe revealed the fact that they had nothing which she considered decent. This was not the first time that she had taken the subject into consideration. On the contrary, it had been present with her during her shopping excursions, and she had blessed the instinct which enabled her to see at a glance just what shade or tint would suit the opposite complexions of the two girls.

She had visited her dressmaker and made arrangements with her for service. But the question had been, whether she could not smuggle them off in some way to a quieter street among the less fashionable workers, and secure for them a respectable outfit in which to appear at Madame Delfort’s. It was over these and kindred plans that she had lain awake, and finally abandoned them all, and resolved upon outright unconcern in regard to what others might say or think. Nevertheless she winced when the two girls came down arrayed in their best, bright plaids—for Mrs. Ferris’ taste had run entirely in that direction—cheap hat adorned with cheap flowers and brilliant ribbons, both flowers and ribbons more or less soiled, and with no gloves at all. Seraphina reported that she had lost hers, and Araminta, that she couldn’t find hers. Between those two states there is a distinction, though it may not appear at first sight.

The trial carriage had arrived, and Judge Burnham seated his party, himself wearing a disturbed face. He did not like the appearance of the company with which he was to go to town. Ruth had thought of this, and had tried to plan differently, but with a man’s obtuseness he had not thought of it, and could not, or would not understand why he should go in on the ten o’clock train, and the rest wait until twelve, especially when his wife admitted herself to be in haste and they might all go together. Fairly seated opposite his daughters, he saw a reason for having gone earlier, and even looked about him, nervously, as the carriage neared the depot, wishing there was yet some chance of escape.

A way opened. “Ah, good-morning, Judge! this is fortunate. I am in search of you.” This was the greeting which he received from the depot door. And he left Ruth standing on the steps and went forward to shake hands with a tall, gray-haired man, in the prime of life. He came back after a few moments, speaking rapidly. “Ruth, that is Parsons, the famous criminal lawyer; he wants to consult me in regard to a case, and is going farther on by the next train in search of a clue. I guess, after all, I shall have to wait here for the twelve o’clock, and have a talk with him; that is, if you do not object.”

“Oh, not at all!” Ruth said, breathing more freely. Her husband’s daughters were less of a cross to her without him than with him. Every man he met on the train knew and came to talk with him, while she was a stranger. The famous criminal lawyer moved toward them, looking interested, and Judge Burnham could hardly escape the ceremony of introduction.

“Ah!” he said, bowing low to Mrs. Burnham, “very happy to meet you, madam. I have known your husband for several years. I hear you are just getting settled at your country-seat. Terrible task, isn’t it? But pays, I suppose, when one gets fairly settled. I didn’t know until the other day that you were rural in your tastes, Judge Burnham?”

All these sentences, spoken in the man-of-the-world tone, which indicates that the person is talking for the sake of filling the time, and all the while his practiced eye was taking in the group—Judge Burnham with a slightly embarrassed manner and somewhat flushed face; his elegant, high-bred wife, who was a trifle pale as she was wont to be under strong feeling of any sort; and the two girls, in outre attire, standing a little apart, with wide eyes and flaming cheeks, staring painfully. The criminal lawyer seemed to think that the position demanded more words from him. “You are the victims of the usual American nuisance, I see,” with the slightest possible inclination of his head toward the two. “The inefficiency of hired help is really the social puzzle of this country, I think. Foreigners have immensely the advantage of us. Just returning a relay of the condemned sort I suppose?”

There was the rising inflection to his sentence which marks a question, and yet he rattled on, precisely like a man who expects no answer. Was it because the train sounded its warning-whistle just then, that Judge Burnham, though his face flushed and his eyes flashed, did not correct the criminal lawyer’s mistake?