vity of limb? I smiled and thanked her, wondering who she was.

"Pretty scenery," says she, pointing to the bank on which some
cottage-houses, and a wooden tavern with red maroon half-curtains at the
window, seemed to set the whole neighborhood on fire. "Now I would give
anything for a house like that. Snug, isn't it?"

She might have been looking at the wooden tavern, or at a cottage close
by with a beautiful drapery of vines running along the porch. "Of
course," thought I, "she means that."

"Yes," says I, "it looks delightfully quiet."

She nodded, and opened her basket, a capacious affair, quite large
enough to hold half a peck of peaches. My mouth began to water.
Perhaps--

"Take one," says she, handing over a cracker.

I took the disappointment, and tried to eat, but with that hankering
after peaches in my throat it seemed like refreshing one's self on
sawdust. She noticed this, I think, and, with a little hesitation,
looked into her basket again, then closed it, and, looking towards me,
whispered--

"That's dry eating. Come down to the cabin, and I'll give you something
nice."

"Something nice!" I felt my eyes brighten. "Something nice--peaches, of
course. What else could she have but peaches?" I thanked her with
enthusiasm; my eyes gloated on her basket. Peaches and plenty of
them--delicious!

The stranger arose, smoothed down her dress, and led the way downstairs.
Her presence was imposing, her step firm as a rock. Assuredly my new
acquaintance was no common person--a little stout, certainly, but so is
the Queen of England.

I followed her eagerly, thinking of the peaches, longing for them with
inexpressible longing. We went through the cabin--on and on--back of
some curtains that draped it at one end. Here she paused, set her basket
on a marble table, and proceeded to open it.

I did not wish to show the craving eagerness which possessed me, and
delicately turned my eyes away. Then she spoke in a deep mellow voice,
as though she had fed on peaches from the cradle up.

"Look a-here," says she. "Isn't this something nice?"

I looked! the basket was open. She held a tumbler in one hand and a
bottle in the other, from which a stream of brandy gurgled. That rotund
impostor came toward me, beaming.

"There," says she, "take right hold. It's first-rate Cognac."

All the Vermont blood in my veins riled suddenly. I drew myself up to
the full queenly height that so many people have thought imposing.