for being there. No matter if she had consented to be carried round for
a show, it must have been horrible to be stared at and joked about day
after day; and we gravely looked at the monkeys, and in a few minutes
turned to see if Mrs. Kew were not ready to come away, when to our
surprise we saw that she was talking to the giantess with great
interest, and we went nearer.

"I thought your face looked natural the minute I set foot inside the
door," said Mrs. Kew; "but you've--altered some since I saw you, and I
couldn't place you till I heard you speak. Why, you used to be spare; I
am amazed, Marilly! Where are your folks?"

"I don't wonder you are surprised," said the giantess. "I was a good
ways from this when you knew me, wasn't I? But father he run through
with every cent he had before he died, and 'he' took to drink and it
killed him after a while, and then I begun to grow worse and worse, till
I couldn't do nothing to earn a dollar, and everybody was a coming to
see me, till at last I used to ask 'em ten cents apiece, and I scratched
along somehow till this man came round and heard of me, and he offered
me my keep and good pay to go along with him. He had another giantess
before me, but she had begun to fall away consider'ble, so he paid her
off and let her go. This other giantess was an awful expense to him, she
was such an eater; now I don't have no great of an appetite,"--this was
said plaintively,--"and he's raised my pay since I've been with him
because we did so well. I took up with his offer because I was nothing
but a drag and never will be. I'm as comfortable as I can be, but it's a
pretty hard business. My oldest boy is able to do for himself, but he's
married this last year, and his wife don't want me. I don't know's I
blame her either. It would be something like if I had a daughter now;
but there, I'm getting to like travelling first-rate; it gives anybody a
good deal to think of."

"I was asking the folks about you when I was up home the early part of
the summer," said Mrs. Kew, "but all they knew was that you were living
out in New York State. Have you been living in Kentucky long? I saw it
on the picture outside."

"No," said the giantess, "that was a picture the man bought cheap from
another show that broke up last year. It says six hundred and fifty
pounds, but I don't weigh more than four hundred. I haven't been weighed
for some time past. Between you and me I don't weigh so much as that,
but y