s very thin, and had a high beaked nose and reddish hair and a reddish
skin, and on the left side of her chin was a mole, with three little
reddish hairs sticking out of it; she wore a rusty black dress, very
tight above the waist and very wide below, and in the bosom of this
dress were sticking dozens, maybe hundreds, for all Freddie could tell,
of pins and needles. She must have been very tall when she stood up. A
cane leaned against the back of her chair; she was a little lame; not
very lame, but enough to make her limp when she walked, and to make her
cane useful in getting about. If she had had a stiff starched ruff about
her neck and a lace thing on her head pointed in front, she would have
done very well for Queen Elizabeth, the one you see the picture of in
that history-book. There was a thimble on the second finger of her right
hand, and a pair of scissors hung by a tape at her waist; and around her
neck she wore a measuring tape. On the floor at her feet lay a pile of
goods, and some of it was in her lap; the kind of goods that Mother has
around her when she is turning and making over that old blue serge, and
gathers up out of Father's way when she hears him coming in towards the
sitting-room.

At Aunt Amanda's elbow stood an oval marble-topped table, and besides a
work-basket there were several fascinating things on it. In the center
was a glass dome, and under the glass dome was the most beautiful basket
of wax flowers--calla lilies mostly, with a wonderful yellow spike like
a finger sticking up out of each one. On one side of the wax flowers was
a thick book with blue plush covers, and the word "Album" across it in
slanting gold letters. On the other side was a kind of a--well, it had a
handle under a piece of wood to hold it up by, and a frame at one end to
stick up a picture in, and two pieces of thick glass in a frame at the
other end to look through at the picture and make the picture look
all--_you_ know!--as if the people in the back of it were a long way
behind, and the people in front right close up in front, and all that;
Freddie's father had one.

The chairs in the room had thin curved legs and those slippery
horse-hair seats which Freddie hated to sit on. On the walls were
portraits in oval frames of men with chin-whiskers and no mustaches, and
ladies in shawls and bonnets; but there was one square frame, and it had
no picture under its glass, but a sheaf of real wheat, standing up as
natural as