n the household stirred below. The members of the family had
remained up far into the night. As for the negroes, they understand how
to get a certain profit for themselves out of all disturbances of the
weather. Gabriella was glad of the chance to wait for the house-girl to
come up and kindle her fire--grateful for the luxury of lying in bed on
Friday morning, instead of getting up to a farmer's early breakfast,
when sometimes there were candles on the table to reveal the localities
of the food! How she hated those candles, flaring in her eyes so early!
How she loved the mellow flicker of them at night, and how she hated
them in the morning--those early-breakfast candles!

In high spirits, then, with the certainty of a late breakfast and no
school, she now lay on the pillows, looking across with sparkling eyes
at last night's little gray ridge of ashes under the bars of her small
grate. Those hearthstones!--when her bare soles accidentally touched
one on winter mornings, Gabriella was of the opinion that they were the
coldest bricks that ever came from a fiery furnace. There was one thing
in the room still colder: the little cherrywood washstand away over on
the other side of the big room between the windows,--placed there at
the greatest possible distance from the fire! Sometimes when she peeped
down into her wash-pitcher of mornings, the ice bulged up at her like a
white cannon-ball that had gotten lodged on the way out. She jabbed at
it with the handle of her toothbrush; or, if her temper got the best of
her (or the worst), with the poker. Often her last act at night was to
dry her toothbrush over the embers so that the hair in it would not be
frozen in the morning.

Gabriella raised her head from the pillows and peeped over at the
counterpane covering her. It consisted of stripes of different colors,
starting from a point at the middle of the structure and widening
toward the four sides. Her feet were tucked away under a bank of plum
color sprinkled with salt; up her back ran a sort of comet's tail of
puddled green. Over her shoulder and descending toward her chin, flowed
a broadening delta of well-beaten egg.

She was thankful for these colors. The favorite hue of the farmer's
wife was lead. Those hearthstones--lead! The strip of oilcloth covering
the washstand--lead! The closet in the wall containing her
things--lead! The stair-steps outside--lead! The porches down
below--lead! Gabriella sometimes wondered wheth