e asks for 'em, which makes it so near to beggin'
that she ought to be ashamed on't, which I only give to her because
it's your father's wish for me to do so, and the things are his'n; but
I always treat her well, Cornele."

"But why don't you like her, Tira?" asked Helen.

"My dear, I'll tell you," said Statira; "for I don't want you to think
I'm set against any person unreasonable and without cause. You see
Miss Jaynes is a nateral-born beggar. I don't say it with any
ill-will, but it's a fact. She takes to beggin' as naterally as a
goslin' takes to a puddle; and when she first come to town she
commenced a-beggin', and has kep' it up ever since. She used to tackle
me the same as she does everybody else, askin' me to give somethin' to
this, and to that, and to t'other pet humbug of her'n, but I never
would do it; and when she found she could'nt worry me into it, like
the rest of 'em, it set her very bitter against me; and I heard of her
tellin' I'd treated her with rudeness, which I'd always treated her
civilly, only when I said 'No,' she found coaxin' and palaverin'
wouldn't stir me. So it went on for a year or two, till, one fall, I
was stayin' here to your ma's,--Cornele, I guess you remember the
time,--helpin' of her make up her quinces and apples. We was jest in
the midst of bilin' cider, with one biler on the stove and the biggest
brass kittle full in the fireplace, when in comes boltin' Miss Jaynes,
dressed up as fine as a fiddle. She set right down in the kitchen, and
your ma rolled her sleeves down and took off her apurn, lookin' kind
o' het and worried. After a few words, Miss Jaynes took a paper out
of her pocket, and says she to your ma, 'Miss Bugbee,' says she, 'I'm
a just startin' forth on the Lord's business, and I come to you as the
helpmate and pardner of one of his richest stewards in this
vineyard.'--'What is it now?' says your ma, lookin' out of one eye at
the brass kittle, and speakin' more impatient than I ever heard her
speak to a minister's wife before. Well, I can't spend time to tell
all that Miss Jaynes said in answer, but it seemed some of the big
folks in New York had started a new society, and its object was to
provide, as near as ever I could find out, such kind of necessary
notions for indigent young men studyin' to be ministers as they
couldn't well afford to buy for themselves,--such as steel-bowed specs
for the near-sighted ones, and white cravats, black silk gloves, and
linen-camb