CHAPTER VIII.

AT DR. DEANE'S.


As she dismounted on the large flat stone outside the paling, Martha
Deane saw her father's face at the window. It was sterner and graver
than usual.

The Deane mansion stood opposite the Unicorn Tavern. When built, ninety
years previous, it had been considered a triumph of architecture; the
material was squared logs from the forest, dovetailed, and overlapping
at the corners, which had the effect of rustic quoins, as contrasted
with the front, which was plastered and yellow-washed. A small portico,
covered with a tangled mass of eglantine and coral honeysuckle, with a
bench at each end, led to the door; and the ten feet of space between it
and the front paling were devoted to flowers and rose-bushes. At each
corner of the front rose an old, picturesque, straggling cedar-tree.

There were two front doors, side by side,--one for the family
sitting-room, the other (rarely opened, except when guests arrived) for
the parlor. Martha Deane entered the former, and we will enter with her.

The room was nearly square, and lighted by two windows. On those sides
the logs were roughly plastered; on the others there were partitions of
panelled oak, nearly black with age and smoke, as were the heavy beams
of the same wood which formed the ceiling. In the corner of the room
next the kitchen there was an open Franklin stove,--an innovation at
that time,--upon which two or three hickory sticks were smouldering into
snowy ashes. The floor was covered with a country-made rag carpet, in