made some kind of use of;
but beggars must n't be choosers; not that she was a beggar, for she'd
sooner die than do that if she was in want of a meal of victuals. There
was a lady I remember, and she had a little boy and she was a widow,
and after she'd buried her husband she was dreadful poor, and she was
ashamed to let her little boy go out in his old shoes, and copper-toed
shoes they was too, because his poor little ten--toes--was a coming out
of 'em; and what do you think my husband's rich uncle,--well, there
now, it was me and my little Benjamin, as he was then, there's no use
in hiding of it,--and what do you think my husband's uncle sent me but a
plaster of Paris image of a young woman, that was,--well, her appearance
wasn't respectable, and I had to take and wrap her up in a towel and
poke her right into my closet, and there she stayed till she got her
head broke and served her right, for she was n't fit to show folks.
You need n't say anything about what I told you, but the fact is I was
desperate poor before I began to support myself taking boarders, and a
lone woman without her--her--

The sentence plunged into the gulf of her great remembered sorrow, and
was lost to the records of humanity.

--Presently she continued in answer to my questions: The Lady was not
very sociable; kept mostly to herself. The Young Girl (our Scheherezade)
used to visit her sometimes, and they seemed to like each other, but the
Young Girl had not many spare hours for visiting. The Lady never found
fault, but she was very nice in her tastes, and kept everything about
her looking as neat and pleasant as she could.

--What did she do?--Why, she read, and she drew pictures, and she did
needlework patterns, and played on an old harp she had; the gilt was
mostly off, but it sounded very sweet, and she sung to it sometimes,
those old songs that used to be in fashion twenty or thirty years ago,
with words to 'em that folks could understand.

Did she do anything to help support herself?--The Landlady couldn't say
she did, but she thought there was rich people enough that ought to buy
the flowers and things she worked and painted.

All this points to the fact that she was bred to be an ornamental rather
than what is called a useful member of society. This is all very well
so long as fortune favors those who are chosen to be the ornamental
personages; but if the golden tide recedes and leaves them stranded,
they are more to be pitied than