Many half-pence did he pick up that had been lost through the cracks of the floor , and some few Spanish coins , and the half of a broken sixpence which had doubtless been a love-token . There was likewise a silver coronation medal of George III . But old Peter Goldthwaite 's strong-box fled from one dark corner to another , or otherwise eluded the second Peter 's clutches till , should he seek much farther , he must burrow into the earth . We will not follow him in his triumphant progress step by step . Suffice it that Peter worked like a steam-engine and finished in that one winter the job which all the former inhabitants of the house , with time and the elements to aid them , had only half done in a century . Except the kitchen , every room and chamber was now gutted . The house was nothing but a shell , the apparition of a house , as unreal as the painted edifices of a theatre . It was like the perfect rind of a great cheese in which a mouse had dwelt and nibbled till it was a cheese no more . And Peter was the mouse . What Peter had torn down , Tabitha had burnt up , for she wisely considered that without a house they should need no wood to warm it , and therefore economy was nonsense . Thus the whole house might be said to have dissolved in smoke and flown up among the clouds through the great black flue of the kitchen chimney . It was an admirable parallel to the feat of the man who jumped down his own throat . On the night between the last day of winter and the first of spring every chink and cranny had been ransacked except within the precincts of the kitchen . This fated evening was an ugly one . A snow-storm had set in some hours before , and was still driven and tossed about the atmosphere by a real hurricane which fought against the house as if the prince of the air in person were putting the final stroke to Peter 's labors . The framework being so much weakened and the inward props removed , it would have been no marvel if in some stronger wrestle of the blast the rotten walls of the edifice and all the peaked roofs had come crashing down upon the owner 's head . He , however , was careless of the peril , but as wild and restless as the night itself , or as the flame that quivered up the chimney at each roar of the tempestuous wind . `` The wine , Tabitha , '' he cried -- `` my grandfather 's rich old wine ! We will drink it now . '' Tabitha arose from her smoke-blackened bench in the chimney-corner and placed the bottle before Peter , close beside the old brass lamp which had likewise been the prize of his researches .
XXXXX held it before his eyes , and , looking through the liquid medium , beheld the kitchen illuminated with a golden glory which also enveloped Tabitha and gilded her silver hair and converted her mean garments into robes of queenly splendor .
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