ostrich's egg,
with a ship drawn on it, on the mantel-shelf, and ever so many rugs on
the floor, of most ambitious designs, which they had made in winter. I
know the making of them had been a great pleasure to Miss Cynthia, and
I was sure it was she who had taken care of the garden, and was always
at much pains to get seeds and slips in the spring.

She told me how much they had wished that Georgie had come to live with
them after his mother died. It would have been very handy for them to
have him in winter too; but it was no use trying to get him away from
his father; and neither of them were contented if they were out of
sight of the sea. "He's a dreadful odd boy, and so old for his years.
Hannah, she says he's older now than I be," and she blushed a little as
she looked up at me; while for a moment the tears came into my eyes, as
I thought of this poor, plain woman, who had such a capacity for
enjoyment, and whose life had been so dull, and far apart from the
pleasures and satisfactions which had made so much of my own life. It
seemed to me as if I had had a great deal more than I deserved, while
this poor soul was almost beggared. I seemed to know all about her
life in a flash, and pitied her from the bottom of my heart. Yet I
suppose she would not have changed places with me for any thing, or
with anybody else, for that matter.

Miss Cynthia had a good deal to say about her mother, who had been a
schoolmate of Mrs. Wallis's--I had just been telling them what I could
about the auction. She told me that she had died the spring before,
and said how much they missed her; and Hannah broke in upon her regrets
in her brusque, downright way: "I should have liked to kep' her if
she'd lived to be a hundred, but I don't wish her back. She'd had
considerable many strokes, and she couldn't help herself much if any.
She'd got to be rising eighty, and her mind was a good deal broke," she
added conclusively, after a short silence; while Cynthia looked
sorrowfully out of the window, and we heard the sound of Georgie's axe
at the other side of the house, and the wild sweet whistle of a bird
that flew overhead. I suppose one of the sisters was just as sorry as
the other in reality.

"Now I want you and Georgie to stop and have some tea. I'll get it
good and early," said Hannah, starting suddenly from her chair, and
beginning to bustle about again, after she had asked me about some
people at home whom she knew; "Cynthy!