MAGGIE would have liked very well to run about a little on that first evening of their arrival at Chalecoo; but Bessie was so tired that her mother wished her to keep quiet; and as Maggie would not go out without her sister, they both contented themselves with making acquaintance with the house and the people who belonged there. And a delightful house it was to make acquaintance with,--full of all kinds of odd nooks and corners, with two or three steps here leading up to one room, two or three there going down to another; queer little pantries and cupboards and crooked passages, and altogether unlike any other house the children had ever seen. Through the centre was a wide, cool hall with a green blind door at either end, a capital place for a play-room on a rainy day; and around three sides ran a broad piazza, well shaded with vines and the noble old trees among which the house stood.