ver been, resting her elbow on the table and her
head upon her hand, and looking thoughtfully into the fire.

This was Widow Townsend, "relict" of Mr. Levi Townsend, who had been
mouldering into dust in the neighboring churchyard for seven years and
more. She was thinking of her dead husband, possibly because all her
work being done, and the servant gone to bed, the sight of his empty
chair at the other side of the table, and the silence of the room, made
her a little lonely.

"Seven years," so the widow's reverie ran; "it seems as if it were more
than fifty, and Christmas nigh here again, and yet I don't look so very
old neither. Perhaps it's not having any children to bother my life out,
as other people have. They may say what they like--children are more
plague than profit, that's my opinion. Look at my sister Jerusha, with
her six boys. She's worn to a shadow, and I am sure they have done it,
though she never will own it."

The widow took an apple from the dish and began to peel it.

"How fond Mr. Townsend used to be of these apples! He'll never eat any
more of them, poor fellow, for I don't suppose they have apples where he
has gone to. Heigho! I remember very well how I used to throw apple-peel
over my head when I was a girl to see who I was going to marry."

Mrs. Townsend stopped short and blushed, for in those days she did not
know Mr. T., and was always looking eagerly to see if the peel had
formed a capital S. Her meditations took a new turn.

"How handsome Sam Payson was, and how much I use to care about him! I
wonder what has become of him! Jerusha says he went away from our
village just after I did, and no one has ever heard of him since. What a
silly thing that quarrel was! If it had not been for that--"

Here came a long pause, during which the widow looked very steadfastly
at the empty arm-chair of Levi Townsend, deceased. Her fingers played
carelessly with the apple-peel: she drew it safely towards her, and
looked around the room.

"Upon my word, it is very ridiculous, and I don't know what the
neighbors would say if they saw me."

Still the plump fingers drew the red peel nearer.

"But then they can't see me, that's a comfort; and the cat and old Bose
never will know what it means. Of course I don't _believe_ anything
about it."

The peel hung gracefully from her hand.

"But still, I should like to try; it would seem like old times, and--"

Over her head it went, and curled up quietly on