o apply to Holly for
information on the desired point.

"Why, lor bless you!" said the colored girl in a mysterious manner,
"Didn't you know that Miss Statia has been crossed in love?"

Holly announced this fact as a sufficiently explanatory one; but I could
not comprehend what connection there was between being crossed in love,
and a large trunk of bran new things.

"Why, I quite pities your ignorance, Miss Amy! In old times," continued
my informant, as though dwelling on her own particular virtue in this
respect, "in old times people didn't used to be half so lazy as they am
now-a-days, and thought nothing at all of sewing their fingers to the
bone, or spinning their nails off, or knittin' forever; and when gals
growed up, and had any thoughts of gittin' married, they set to work and
made hull trunks full of things, and people used to call them spinsters.
Now Miss Statia has been fillin' trunks and baskets ever sense she could
do anything, so that she's got a pretty likely stock--but no one ever
came along this way but what was married already, and that's the meanin'
of bein' crossed in love. But don't for your life go to tellin'
nobody--they'd most chop my head off, if it should come out."

I asked Holly how she had ascertained the fact; "Oh," she replied,
knowingly, "there ain't much that escapes me. I know pretty much every
article in this house, and hear whatever's goin' on. Key-holes is a
great convenience; and though it ain't very pleasant to be squatin' in
cold entries, and fallin' in the room sometimes, when people open the
door without no warnin', yet I'm often there when they think I'm safe in
the kitchin. Miss Statia once boxed my ears and sent me to bed, when she
happened to ketch me listinin'; but it didn't smart much, and people
can't 'spect to gather roses without thistles."

Holly often interspersed her conversation with various quotations and
wise reflections; but the idea of listening at key-holes quite shocked
my sense of honor, and I endeavored to remonstrate with her upon the
practice.

"It won't do for you to talk so, Miss Amy," was her sagacious reply;
"you mus'n't quarrel with the ship that carries you safe over. If I had
not listened at key-holes, you'd never have known what was in them
trunks."

The truth of this remark was quite manifest; and concluding that I was
not exactly suited to the character of admonisher, I never renewed the
attempt.

Aunt Henshaw had boxes of old letters