ld,--there were so many things which might
be spoiled, even if they came in boxes. Betsy Ann was instructed, on
pain of--almost death, to be very, very careful, and to put everything
on the table in the library. She was by no means to unpack an article,
not even a bouquet. Laura and myself preferred to arrange everything
ourselves. We proposed to place each of the presents, for that evening
only, in the library, and spread them out as usual; but the very next
day, we determined, they should all be put away, wherever they were to
go,--of course, we could not tell where, till we saw them. That was
Laura's taste, and had come, on reflection, to be mine.

Laura said she should make me presents only of innumerable stitches:
which she had done. Polly, whom it is both impossible and irrelevant to
describe, took the opportunity to scrub the house from top to bottom.
Her own wedding-present to me, homely though it was, I wrapped in silver
paper, and showed it to her lying in state on the library-table, to her
infinite amusement.

Like the North American Indian, the race of Pollies is fast going out
of American life. You read an advertisement of "an American servant who
wants a place in a genteel family," and visions of something common in
American households, when you were children, come up to your mind's eye.
Without considering the absurdity of an American girl calling herself by
such a name, your eyes fill with tears at the thought of the faithful
and loving service of years ago, when neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor
death itself separated the members of the household, but the nurse-maid
was the beloved friend, living and dying under the same roof that
witnessed her untiring and faithful devotion.

So, when you look after this "American servant," you find alien blood,
lip-service, a surface-warmth that flatters, but does not delude,--a
fidelity that fails you in sickness, or increased toil, or the prospect
of higher wages; and you say to the "American servant,"--

"How long have you been in Boston?"

"Born in Boston, Ma'm,--in Eliot Street, Ma'm."

So was not Polly. Polly had lived with us always. She had a farm of her
own, and needn't have "lived out" five minutes, unless she had chosen.
But she did choose it, and chose to keep her place. And that was a true
friend,--in a humble position, possibly, yet one of her own choosing.
She rejoiced and wept with us, knew all about us,--corresponded
regularly with us when away,