HOUSE, PLANS, AND SPECIFICATIONS. 53 



Vineyard he sent a watchman who was to sleep 

 among the &quot; stuff,&quot; and prevent Mr. Barney s com 

 patriots from converting it into firewood. 



Mr. Sille was to arrive tne next day. Week after 

 week went by, but he did not appear. The house lay 

 on the ground as though a hundred-pound rebel shell 

 had dropped into the cellar and scattered it to the 

 four winds of heaven ; the watchman waited, watch 

 ed, and prayed, doubtless, for relief, Jill his money 

 was spent, and his shoes worn out, and his coat thread 

 bare ; I alternated between imbecility and fury ; Bar 

 ney even was overcome, and sent w T ord begging to 

 have the workshop, which had been placed on top of 

 a pile of his hay, removed ; and Flushing made it 

 the regular fashionable evening drive to visit my five 

 acres to see how the house was not getting on. 



In about a month, when the mason had almost be 

 come crazy, myself frantic, and Barney idiotic, Sille 

 reappeared from Nantucket or some other remote 

 spot, looking like the ghost of his former self, and 

 announced that he had been at the point of death. 

 Not taking into consideration for a moment my losses 

 and sufferings, he absolutely wanted sympathy ; in 

 the first place, he must nearly drown himself, and 

 now he must catch the erysipelas, and expect me to 

 feel for any one but myself. I asked him sternly 



