Page:Letters of Life.djvu/117

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REMOVAL—HOUSEHOLD EMPLOYMENTS.
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costume, admired even by the tasteful. I wore mine with more true satisfaction than I have since worn brocades, or court costume at presentations to royalty.

The antique tenant, for whose convenience in the matter of rent we so much bestirred ourselves, was quite a character. Wrinkled was her visage, yet rubicund with healthful toil; and when she walked in the streets, which was seldom, her bow-like body, and arms diverging toward a crescent form, preserved the altitude in which she sprung the shuttle and heaved the beam. Her cumbrous, old-fashioned loom contained a vast quantity of timber, and monopolized most of the space in the principal apartment of her cottage. Close under her window were some fine peach trees, which she claimed as her own, affirming that she planted the kernels from whence they sprung. So their usufruct was accorded her by the owner of the soil. As the large, rich fruit approached its blush of ripeness, her watchfulness became intense. Her cap, yellow with smoke, and face deepening to a purple tinge of wrathful emotion, might be seen protruding from her casement, as she vituperated the boys who manifested a hazardous proximity to the garden wall. Not perfectly lamblike was her temperament, as I judge from the shriek of the objurgations she sometimes addressed to them; while they, more quiescent, it would seem, than boy-nature in modern times, returned no rude reply. I opine that the lady might have been both exacting