fire-place and larder were acceptable, though usually received without thanks, as she seemed to hold the theory that the world owed her a living. She had, in her prime, been a nurse and a common needle-woman, but I believe never a servant of all work. She was of huge proportions, and such an immense adipose substance that it was impossible to connect with her the idea of pining poverty. Her heavy footstep was literally a "threshing of the floors." I have seldom seen womanhood attain such a bulk. She was garrulous, and, as is natural to threescore and ten, dwelt much on the past. She imagined that she had once been the possessor of beauty, and the rallying point of several admirers. This required the strength of an implicit faith, overcoming all evidence of the things that were seen. But the vanity was harmless, and seemed to entertain her. She also wished to convey an opinion of the dignity of her family. The effort centred principally in her mother, whose name, she never omitted to add, was Miss Remembrance Carrier, abridged for domestic convenience to the monosyllable Mem. An acrostic, inspired by this parent, she was fond of repeating. Its concluding lines I chance to recollect, the last syllable of her conjugal nomenclature being land:
"Let Satan fly with fiery dart—
Arise, commune with thy own heart,—
Now, learn to choose the better part, —
Deliverance find from sin's desert."
