Mrs. Prior, the landlady, a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman, with kind, motherly manners, met them at the door with a welcome nearly as hearty as that of their old time friend.
"I'm glad to see you," she said, bustling about to wait upon them, "We've plenty o' room here in town for the right sort o' folks, and glad to get 'em."
She had taken them into her parlor, the only one the house afforded.
The furniture was plain—a rag carpet, green paper blinds, a table with a rod and black cover, windsor chairs, two of them rocking chairs with chintz-covered cushions, the rest straight-backed and hard; on the high wooden mantel shelf an old-fashioned looking-glass, a few shells and two brass candlesticks; these last bright as scouring could make them.
"I'm afraid it must seem but a poor place to you, ladies," she continued, pushing forward a rocking chair for each. "And you're dreadful tired, ain't you? with your long journey. Do sit down and rest yourselves."
"You are very kind, and everything looks very nice indeed," Mrs. Keith answered, looking up at her with a pleased smile as she accepted the offered seat, and began untying her baby's bonnet strings.
"Indeed, I, for one, didn't expect to find half as good accommodations out in these western wilds," remarked Aunt Wealthy, glancing round the room. "I thought you had no floors to your carpets."
"No floors? oh yes; rather rough to be sure;—carpenters here don't make the best of work; and I think sometimes I could a'most plane a board better myself—but to get the carpets is the rub; we mostly make 'em ourselves and the weavin's often done so poor that they don't last no time hardly. Soil's sandy, you see, and it cuts the carpets right out."
"They say this country's hard on women and oxen," put in Mr. Ward, "and I'm afraid it's pretty true."