iestess was Patty
herself. Her floors were like satin-wood, and her brasses lights in
themselves. She had come honestly enough by her gifts, her father having
married the daughter of an able townsman of Salem, in the Massachusetts
colony, when he had gone north after his first great success in court.
Now the poor lady sat in a padded armchair from morning to night, beside
the hearth in winter, and under the trees in summer, by reason of a fall
she had had. There she knitted all the day long. Her placid face and
quiet way come before me as I write.

My friendship with Patty had begun early. One autumn day when I was a
little lad of eight or nine, my grandfather and I were driving back from
Whitehall in the big coach, when we spied a little maid of six by the
Severn's bank, with her apron full of chestnuts. She was trudging
bravely through the dead leaves toward the town. Mr. Carvel pulled the
cord to stop, and asked her name. "Patty Swain, and it please your
honour," the child answered, without fear. "So you are the young
barrister's daughter?" says he, smiling at something I did not
understand. She nodded. "And how is it you are so far from home, and
alone, my little one?" asked Mr. Carvel again. For some time he could
get nothing out of her; but at length she explained, with much coaxing,
that her big brother Tom had deserted her. My grandfather wished that
Tom were his brother, that he might be punished as he deserved. He
commanded young Harvey to lift the child into the coach, chestnuts and
all, and there she sat primly between us. She was not as pretty as
Dorothy, so I thought, but her clear gray eyes and simple ways impressed
me by their very honesty, as they did Mr. Carvel. What must he do but
drive her home to Green Street, where Mr. Swain then lived in a little
cottage. Mr. Carvel himself lifted her out and kissed her, and
handed her to her mother at the gate, who was vastly overcome by the
circumstance. The good lady had not then received that fall which made
her a cripple for life. "And will you not have my chestnuts, sir, for
your kindness?" says little Patty. Whereat my grandfather laughed and
kissed her again, for he loved children, and wished to know if she would
not be his daughter, and come to live in Marlboro' Street; and told the
story of Tom, for fear she would not. He was silent as we drove away,
and I knew he was thinking of my own mother at that age.

Not long after this Mr. Swain bought the house