For two or three days nothing had occupied the good woman's thoughts but this strange and wonderful arrival of strangers--of ladies, too--at the house where so few strangers ever came; and she had exerted all her backwoods' ingenuity to repair what deficiency of comfort there might be.
They were in no humour either to be critical; and Lucia was soon asleep, while her mother lay listening to the sound of the river, and thinking of the many things which this very room brought so freshly to her mind..