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“Take Marsh below, Tipkins, and see that he has refreshments.”

Evidently, the Madam had accepted the sharpshooter as a correct feature of the situation, considering that it was the mark of a gentlewoman to be well attended; and as the two old men left the room he wondered how “Forty-niner” himself would relish being classed with the servants “below stairs.” However, Ephraim cared not one whit for that. He had attained his ambition. He had come east to share in educating his “little Captain” and he was now assigned to a home in the same house with her. “Hooray!” was his thought; and, further, that as soon as one other small matter was settled he would sit him down and write a letter to the other “boys” that would make them stare.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Dalrymple sank gracefully into a deep chair, displaying no sign of the intense pain each movement cost her and physically unable to stand for a moment longer. Thence she held out a thin white hand toward the girl who had not yet risen from the floor, nor left off staring at the lady before her—so wholly different from the picture she had formed of the “stern old woman” with whom she was to live.