bordering on the Sound. Here they stopped at the only house in view. It was a miserable hut, built of logs, and boarded with slabs. They alighted from the carriage, and Melissa’s aunt, handing the driver a large bunch of keys, “remember to do as I have told you,” said she, and he drove rapidly away. It was with some difficulty they got into the hut, as a meagre cow, with a long yoke on her neck, a board before her eyes, and a cross piece on her horns, stood with her head in the door. On one side of her were four or five half starved squeaking pigs, on the other a flock of gaggling geese.

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As they entered the door, a woman who sat carding wool jumped up, “La me! she cried, here is Miss D——, welcome here again. How does madam do?” dropping a low curtsey. She was dressed in a linsey woolsey short gown, a petticoat of the same, her hair hanging about her ears, and barefoot. Three dirty, ragged children were playing about the floor, and the furniture was of a piece with the building. “Is my room in order?” enquired Melissa’s aunt. “It hasn’t been touched since madam was here,” answered the woman, and immediately stalked away to a little back apartment, which Melissa and her aunt entered. It was small, but neatly furnished, and contained 82 a single bed. This appendage had been concealed from Melissa’s view, as it was the opposite side of the house from whence she alighted. “Where is John?” asked Melissa’s aunt. “My husband is in the garden, replied the woman; I will call him,” and out she scampered. John soon appeared, and exhibited an exact counter part of his wife. “What does madam please to want?” said he, bowing three or four times. “I want you John,” she answered, and immediately stepped into the other room, and gave some directions, in a low voice, to him and his wife. “La me! said the woman, madam a’nt a going to live in that doleful place?” Melissa could not understand her aunt’s reply, but heard her give directions to “first hang on the teakettle.” This was done, while John and his wife went out, and Melissa’s aunt prepared tea in her own room. In about an hour John and his wife returned, and gave the same bunch of keys to Melissa’s aunt, which she had given to the servant who drove the carriage.

——

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Melissa was involved in inscrutable mystery respecting these extraordinary proceedings. She conjectured that they boded her no good, but she could not penetrate into her aunt’s designs. She frequently looked out, hoping to see the carriage return, 83 but was disappointed. When tea was made ready, she could 

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