! The partiality of her attachment to me might have been
accounted for by her having had no children of her own; or to the
evident interest which she excited in me, causing my steps to follow
her wherever she went; though all the family endeavored to make her
first and last visit as agreeable as possible. But every attempt to
fasten her attention to an object of interest or curiosity long enough
to understand it, was unavailing. Sometimes I sallied out with her
into the street, and while rather pleased than mortified by the
observation which her grotesque costume and nervous, irregular gait
attracted, it was different with me when she attempted to shop; as
more often than otherwise, she would begin to pay for articles
purchased, and putting her purse abruptly in her pocket, hurry toward
the door, as if on purpose to avoid a touch on the elbow, which
sometimes served to jog her memory also, and sometimes the very
purchases were forgotten, till I became their witness.

On the whole, Aunt Polly's visit was a source of more amusement to me
than all the visits of all my school-mates put together. When we
parted--for I truly loved her--I forgave the squeeze--a screw-turn
tighter than that at our meeting--and promised through my tears to
make her a visit whenever my parents would consent to it. The
homestead was as still for a week after her departure, as a ball-room
after the waltzers have all whirled themselves home. Hardly had the
family clock-work commenced its methodical revolutions again, when a
letter arrived; and who that knew Aunt Polly, could have mistaken its
characteristic superscription.

My father was well-known at the post office, or the
half-written-out-name would never have found its way into his box.
Internally, the letter was made up of broken sentences, big with love,
like the large, fragmentary drops of rain from a passing summer cloud.
By dint of patient perseverance we "gathered up the fragments, so that
nothing was lost" of Aunt Polly's itinerant thoughts or wishes.

Among the latter was an invitation for me to visit her, on which my
father looked silently and negatively; but I was not thus to be denied
a desire of the heart, and insisted on having an audible response to
my request of permission to fulfill the parting promise to Aunt Polly.
In vain did my father give first an evasive answer, and then hint at
the disappointment likely to await such a step--recall to my mind the
eccentricities of his "