The builder wonders what the squire does with all that great house, and why, when half a dozen rooms are empty there, he doesn't allow himself the pleasure of company, and of sheltering strangers and getting the blessing they bring.
The squire's wife peeps through her fine curtains, and says, "I wonder that pretty and intelligent woman hasn't more taste. She might live like a lady if she pleased, and dress as I do; but she pokes on just as she began, and dresses no better than the minister's wife, and has a rabble of poor, forlorn creatures whom I wouldn't let into my house, nor into my wood-shed, running after her for food and clothing, and nobody knows what."
So you see, "my house" is literally "my house," and "our house" is God's house.
A Mountain Prayer Meeting
"Will you go to meeting with me this afternoon, Mabel? Come; this is your last day here; do go once before you leave the White Mountains." "What do you do in 'meeting'?" asked the gay, beautiful, "High Church" New York belle, with just a shade of contemptuous inflection in her voice.
"Well,—there will be no sermon; there never is in the afternoon. The good minister sits in the aisle, in front of the pulpit, and invites any one he likes to make a prayer. Any other one, who feels the need of it, may request that he or she be mentioned personally in the petition; and those who wish it may relate their experience."