n the verge of uncomplaining tears, "but I don't
quite feel competent to undertake it now. It looks to me as if the
kettles might be hard to lift." Emily glanced at her hands and
wrists as she spoke. Emily's hands and arms are very small and bony,
as she is in her general construction, though she is tall.

The little chamber which she inhabited during the preparation for the
centennial was very hot in those midsummer days, and her face was
always suffused with a damp pink when she came out of it; but she
uttered no word of complaint, not even when they took down her marble
slabs and exposed the yawning mouths of the old fireplaces again. All
she said was once in a deprecatory whisper to me, to the effect that
she was a little sorry to have strangers see her house looking so,
but she supposed it was interesting.

We expected a number of strangers. Mrs. Sim White's brother, who had
gone to Boston when he was a young man and turned out so smart, being
the head of a large dry-goods firm, was coming, and was to make a
speech; and Mr. Elijah M. Mills, whose mother's people came from
Linnville, was to be there, as having a hereditary interest in the
village. Of course, everybody knows Elijah M. Mills. He was to make a
speech. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright, whose aunt on her father's side, Miss
Jane Beers, used to live in Linnville before she died, was to come
and read some selections from her own works. Mrs. Lucy Beers Wright
writes quite celebrated stories, and reads them almost better than
she writes them. She has enormous prices, too, but she promised to
come to the centennial and read for nothing; she used to visit her
aunt in Linnville when she was a girl, and wrote that she had a
sincere love for the dear old place. Mrs. Jameson said that we were
very fortunate to get her.

Mrs. Jameson did not stop, however, at celebrities of local
traditions; she flew higher still. She wrote the Governor of the
State, inviting him to be present, and some of us were never quite
certain that she did not invite the President of the United States.
However, if she had done so, it seemed incredible that since he
was bidden by Mrs. H. Boardman Jameson he neither came nor wrote a
letter. The Governor of the State did not come, but he wrote a very
handsome letter, expressing the most heartfelt disappointment that he
was unable to be present on such an occasion; and we all felt very
sorry for him when we heard it read. Mrs. Sim White said that a
g