was good store within of that
which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and,
indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done,--when a
woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-smack was
run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage
a family of orphans,--in all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest
was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large
heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver
dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have
been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors usually showed to
Captain Pennel's sea-chest.

The afternoon sun is shining in a square of light through the open
kitchen-door, whence one dreamily disposed might look far out to sea,
and behold ships coming and going in every variety of shape and size.

But Aunt Roxy and Aunt Ruey, who for the present were sole occupants of
the premises, were not people of the dreamy kind, and consequently were
not gazing off to sea, but attending to very terrestrial matters that in
all cases somebody must attend to. The afternoon was warm and balmy, but
a few smouldering sticks were kept in the great chimney, and thrust deep
into the embers was a mongrel species of snub-nosed tea-pot, which fumed
strongly of catnip-tea, a little of which gracious beverage Miss Roxy
was preparing in an old-fashioned cracked India china tea-cup, tasting
it as she did so with the air of a connoisseur.

Apparently this was for the benefit of a small something in long white
clothes, that lay face downward under a little blanket of very blue new
flannel, and which something Aunt Roxy, when not otherwise engaged,
constantly patted with a gentle tattoo, in tune to the steady trot of
her knee. All babies knew Miss Roxy's tattoo on their backs, and never
thought of taking it in ill part. On the contrary, it had a vital and
mesmeric effect of sovereign force against colic, and all other
disturbers of the nursery; and never was infant known so pressed with
those internal troubles which infants cry about, as not speedily to give
over and sink to slumber at this soothing appliance.

At a little distance sat Aunt Ruey, with a quantity of black crape
strewed on two chairs about her, very busily employed in getting up a
mourning-bonnet, at which she snipped, and clipped, and worked,
zealously singing, in a high cracked voice, from time