Some little attempt had been made to adorn the rooms which were meant for the ladies.

Clean towels had been spread over the pine shelves which did duty for dressing-tables, and on each stood a tumbler stuffed as full as it could hold with purple pentstemons.

Clover could not help laughing, yet there was something pathetic to her in the clumsy, man-like arrangement.

She relieved the tumbler by putting a few of the flowers in her dress, and went out again to the parlor, where Mrs.Hope sat by the fire, quizzing the two partners, who were hard at work setting their tea-table.
It was rather a droll spectacle,--the two muscular young fellows creaking to and fro in their heavy boots, and taking such an infinitude of pains with their operations.

One would set a plate on the table, and the other would forthwith alter its position slightly, or lift and scrutinize a tumbler and dust it sedulously with a glass-towel.