araway."

There were ears of corn, sweet, Indian, pop, likewise labelled;
tomatoes, strung in rows to dry, and strings also of newly sliced
apple.

Under this motley ceiling the room showed plainly it was the
living-room of the house. There was a large cooking-stove that shone
so you might have seen your face in it, a row of wash-tubs, leaning
bottom side up against the wall, two wooden pails and three tin ones,
standing on a shelf over the tubs, and these in close proximity to the
only window in the room. Just before this window was a small table
with a Bible, a well-worn one, on it, and a pair of steel-bowed
spectacles. One yellow wooden chair, and what was called "a settle"
near the stove, a large cooking-table, and one more chair, made the
furniture of the room.

Before this table sat an old woman, dressed in a black petticoat, and
a red, short gown that came a little below her waist. She wore a cap
that fitted close to her head, made of some black cloth, innocent of
bow or frill; from under it, locks of gray hung down about her face
and neck. She had a swarthy skin, two small eyes, hidden by a large
pair of glasses, a mouth that kept in motion in spite of the necessity
of stillness which a tableau is supposed to demand, as if she were
reading the letter she held in her hand aloud. The laugh and clapping
which this scene called forth had hardly subsided when, from behind a
hidden corner of the stage, a sweet, clear voice began to read the
descriptive poem.

"It's Kate Underwood herself," was whispered from seat to seat.
"There's no other girl in school that can read as well as she can."

The poem gave a brief description of the kitchen as it appeared on the
stage, then a more lengthy one of the old woman, with the contents of
the letter she was reading. It was from a niece at a boarding-school,
who proposed, in a brief and direct way, to visit this aunt during her
coming vacation. The tableau was acted so well, and with such
piquancy, that claps and peals of laughter from the audience, and
finally calls for "Kate Underwood," who demurely makes her appearance
from behind the curtain, drops a stage courtesy, and disappears. The
poem had been (this audience constituting the judges) excellent, the
very best thing Kate ever wrote; and as for the tableaux, were there
ever any before one-half so good?

Now, while to almost all in the hall there had been nothing said or
done that could injure the feelings of any one