was the only person on the
place who ever scattered anything about so untidily. There was a wicker
sewing-basket in the room, Miss Letitia's property. And a large and
pompous what-not of black walnut, elaborately and fantastically carved,
guarded the corner nearest the door, bearing as its piece de resistance
a bunch of wax flowers under a glass case, flowers shaped by Miss
Asenath's gentle fingers a great many years ago; one or two shells
wearing landscapes in oils--of colors and tints never yet seen in an
actual landscape--also reminiscent of Miss Asenath's artistic girlhood;
and several other non-utilitarian objects of varying degrees of beauty,
according to the personal taste of the beholder. A much larger shell
than those on the what-not, with a landscape containing a cow and other
objects no doubt intended as human, propped open the door into the
hall. A white marble clock, with a large piece of white coral lying on
its top and under a glass case like the wax flowers, ticked away on the
high mantel in the dignified and quiet way which befitted a clock
belonging to the Redfields. And there were many other pieces of
furniture and bits of old-fashioned ornament in the room.

The various generations and the lives which each one had lived at the
Farm might almost be known by observation of these things in the
sitting-room. Each generation and its occupations had seemed to leave
behind it an imprint in furniture and ornament.

But had the sitting-room not been a room of rather unusual dimensions,
it could never have held all of the diversified objects gathered in it.
And they were gathered in it of real necessity, for all the life of the
house centered about Miss Asenath, and in this room she spent her whole
waking time. Miss Asenath had not left the couch between the two south
windows for over fifty years, except to be lifted from it to her bed at
night and back to it again in the morning for another day.

She was as tiny as Miss Eliza, but even thinner, and her delicate
features made her profile seem like a deliciously tinted cameo against
the faded tan of the sitting-room wall. She had an abundance of soft
white hair that waved like a fleecy cloud about her face. Her skin was
white and waxen clear; her loose gown was of woolly material, white and
spotless; the pillows piled all around her were all in immaculate white
cases; and though her lips still held a faded rose and her eyes gleamed
dark, the only real spot of