ughters?"

"Oh, no, they ain't able; it's Sister Wayland's darter Isabella, that
married the overseer of the gre't carriage-shop. I ain't seen her
since just after she was married; but I turned to her first because I
knew she was best able to have me, and then I can see just how the
other girls is situated and make me some kind of a plot. I wrote to
Isabella, though she _is_ ambitious, and said 'twas so I'd got to ask
to come an' make her a visit, an' she wrote back she would be glad to
have me; but she didn't write right off, and her letter was scented up
dreadful strong with some sort o' essence, and I don't feel heartened
about no great of a welcome. But there, I've got eyes, an' I can see
_ho_'t is when I git _where_'t is. Sister Winn's gals ain't married,
an' they've always boarded, an' worked in the shop on trimmin's.
Isabella's well off; she had some means from her father's sister. I
thought it all over by night an' day, an' I recalled that our folks
kept Sister Wayland's folks all one winter, when he'd failed up and
got into trouble. I'm reckonin' on sendin' over to-night an' gittin'
the Winn gals to come and see me and advise. Perhaps some on 'em may
know of somebody that'll take me for what help I can give about house,
or some clever folks that have been lookin' for a smart cat, any ways;
no, I don't know's I could let her go to strangers.

"There was two or three o' the folks round home that acted real
warm-hearted towards me, an' urged me to come an' winter with 'em,"
continued the exile; "an' this mornin' I wished I'd agreed to, 'twas
so hard to break away. But now it's done I feel more'n ever it's best.
I couldn't bear to live right in sight o' the old place, and come
spring I shouldn't 'prove of nothing Is'iah ondertakes to do with the
land. Oh, dear sakes! now it comes hard with me not to have had no
child'n. When I was young an' workin' hard and into everything, I felt
kind of free an' superior to them that was so blessed, an' their
houses cluttered up from mornin' till night, but I tell ye it comes
home to me now. I'd be most willin' to own to even Is'iah, mean's he
is; but I tell ye I'd took it out of him 'fore he was a grown man, if
there'd be'n any virtue in cow-hidin' of him. Folks don't look like
wild creatur's for nothin'. Is'iah's got fox blood in him, an'
p'r'haps 't is his misfortune. His own mother always favored the looks
of an old fox, true's the world; she was a poor tool,--a poor tool! I