o introduce that _you_ know
and your reader doesn't; and one thing so presupposes another, that,
whichever way you turn your patchwork, the figures still seem
ill-arranged. The small item that I have given will do as well as any
other to begin with, as it certainly will lead you to ask, "Pray, who
was Mrs. Katy Scudder?"--and this will start me systematically on my
story.

You must understand that in the then small seaport-town of Newport, at
that time unconscious of its present fashion and fame, there lived
nobody in those days who did not know "the Widow Scudder."

In New England settlements a custom has obtained, which is wholesome and
touching, of ennobling the woman whom God has made desolate, by a sort
of brevet rank which continually speaks for her as a claim on the
respect and consideration of the community. The Widow Jones, or Brown,
or Smith, is one of the fixed institutions of every New England
village,--and doubtless the designation acts as a continual plea for one
whom bereavement, like the lightning of heaven, has made sacred.

The Widow Scudder, however, was one of the sort of women who reign
queens in whatever society they move in; nobody was more quoted, more
deferred to, or enjoyed more unquestioned position than she. She was not
rich,--a small farm, with a modest, "gambrel-roofed," one-story cottage,
was her sole domain; but she was one of the much-admired class who, in
the speech of New England, are said to have "faculty,"--a gift which,
among that shrewd people, commands more esteem than beauty, riches,
learning, or any otherworldly endowment. _Faculty_ is Yankee for _savoir
faire_, and the opposite virtue to shiftlessness. Faculty is the
greatest virtue, and shiftlessness the greatest vice, of Yankee man and
woman. To her who has faculty nothing shall be impossible. She shall
scrub floors, wash, wring, bake, brew, and yet her hands shall be small
and white; she shall have no perceptible income, yet always be
handsomely dressed; she shall have not a servant in her house,--with a
dairy to manage, hired men to feed, a boarder or two to care for,
unheard-of pickling and preserving to do,--and yet you commonly see her
every afternoon sitting at her shady parlor-window behind the lilacs,
cool and easy, hemming muslin cap-strings, or reading the last new book.
She who hath faculty is never in a hurry, never behindhand. She can
always step over to distressed Mrs. Smith, whose jelly won't come,--and
stop