in the shadow of her
sister, and felt as if she were not of very much use or consequence in
the world, I have no doubt. She showed me some pretty picture-frames
she had made out of pine-cones and hemlock-cones and alder-burs; but
her chief glory and pride was a silly little model of a house, in
perforated card-board, which she had cut and worked after a pattern
that came in a magazine. It must have cost her a great deal of work;
but it partly satisfied her great longing for pretty things, and for
the daintiness and art that she had an instinct toward, and never had
known. It stood on the best-room table, with a few books, which I
suppose she had read over and over again; and in the room, beside,
were green paper curtains with a landscape on the outside, and some
chairs ranged stiffly against the walls, some shells, and an ostrich's
egg, with a ship drawn on it, on the mantel-shelf, and ever so many
rugs on the floor, of most ambitious designs, which they had made in
winter. I know the making of them had been a great pleasure to Miss
Cynthia, and I was sure it was she who had taken care of the garden,
and was always at much pains to get seeds and slips in the spring.

She told me how much they had wished that Georgie had come to live
with them after his mother died. It would have been very handy for
them to have him in winter too; but it was no use trying to get him
away from his father; and neither of them were contented if they were
out of sight of the sea. "He's a dreadful odd boy, and so old for his
years. Hannah, she says he's older now than I be," and she blushed a
little as she looked up at me; while for a moment the tears came into
my eyes, as I thought of this poor, plain woman, who had such a
capacity for enjoyment, and whose life had been so dull, and far apart
from the pleasures and satisfactions which had made so much of my own
life. It seemed to me as if I had had a great deal more than I
deserved, while this poor soul was almost beggared. I seemed to know
all about her life in a flash, and pitied her from the bottom of my
heart. Yet I suppose she would not have changed places with me for any
thing, or with anybody else, for that matter.

Miss Cynthia had a good deal to say about her mother, who had been a
schoolmate of Mrs. Wallis's--I had been telling them what I could
about the auction. She told me that she had died the spring before,
and said how much they missed her; and Hannah broke in upon her
regr