or a
stalk of fennel, to give to the children if they were sleepy in meeting.
She was as cheerful and domestic as the tea kettle that sung by her
kitchen fire, and slipped along among Uncle Lot's angles and
peculiarities as if there never was any thing the matter in the world;
and the same mantle of sunshine seemed to have fallen on Miss Grace, her
only daughter.

Pretty in her person and pleasant in her ways, endowed with native
self-possession and address, lively and chatty, having a mind and a will
of her own, yet good-humored withal, Miss Grace was a universal
favorite. It would have puzzled a city lady to understand how Grace, who
never was out of Newbury in her life, knew the way to speak, and act,
and behave, on all occasions, exactly as if she had been taught how. She
was just one of those wild flowers which you may sometimes see waving
its little head in the woods, and looking so civilized and garden-like,
that you wonder if it really did come up and grow there by nature. She
was an adept in all household concerns, and there was something
amazingly pretty in her energetic way of bustling about, and "putting
things to rights." Like most Yankee damsels, she had a longing after the
tree of knowledge, and, having exhausted the literary fountains of a
district school, she fell to reading whatsoever came in her way. True,
she had but little to read; but what she perused she had her own
thoughts upon, so that a person of information, in talking with her,
would feel a constant wondering pleasure to find that she had so much
more to say of this, that, and the other thing than he expected.

Uncle Lot, like every one else, felt the magical brightness of his
daughter, and was delighted with her praises, as might be discerned by
his often finding occasion to remark that "he didn't see why the boys
need to be all the time a' comin' to see Grace, for she was nothing so
extror'nary, after all." About all matters and things at home she
generally had her own way, while Uncle Lot would scold and give up with
a regular good grace that was quite creditable.

"Father," says Grace, "I want to have a party next week."

"You sha'n't go to havin' your parties, Grace. I always have to eat bits
and ends a fortnight after you have one, and I won't have it so." And so
Uncle Lot walked out, and Aunt Sally and Miss Grace proceeded to make
the cake and pies for the party.

When Uncle Lot came home, he saw a long array of pies and rows of