Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville

There was a small porch in front, with a great

entrance door of carved dark wood of a foreign look, which the Captain

had brought from some port in Massachusetts. A stair in one corner of

the big living room led to the second story, where four large

bed-chambers were arranged. These had once been plastered and papered,

but the wall-paper had all faded into dull, neutral tints and in one of

the rooms a big patch of plaster had fallen away from the ceiling,

showing the bare lath. Only one of the upstairs rooms had ever been

furnished, and it now contained a corded wooden bedstead, a cheap pine

table and one broken-legged chair. Indeed, the main building, which I

have briefly described, had not been in use for many years. Sometimes,

when Captain Wegg was alive, he would build a log fire in the great

fireplace on a winter's evening and sit before it in silent mood until

far into the night. And once, when his young wife had first occupied the

new house, the big room had acquired a fairly cosy and comfortable

appearance. But it had always been sparsely furnished, and most of the

decadent furniture that now littered it was useless and unlovely.

The big wooden lean-to at the back, and the right wing, were at this

time the only really habitable parts of the mansion. The lean-to had an

entrance from the living room, but Old Hucks and Nora his wife used the

back door entirely. It consisted of a large and cheerful kitchen and two

rooms off it, one used as a store room and the other as a sleeping

chamber for the aged couple.

The right wing was also constructed of cobble-stone, and had formerly

been Captain Wegg's own chamber. After his death his only child, Joe,

then a boy of sixteen, had taken possession of his father's room; but

after a day or two he had suddenly quitted the house where he was born

and plunged into the great outside world--to seek his fortune, it was

said. Decidedly there was no future for the boy here; in the cities

lurks opportunity.

When Ethel Thompson arrived in the early morning that followed her

interview with McNutt she rode her pony through the gap in the rail

fence, across the June grass, and around to the back door.