a game, and equally angry when defeated. Once, when in extreme
good-humor, she shewed us how to make beads resembling coral, from a
certain paste which she manufactured; but we never could extract from
her the names of the materials, and were obliged to content ourselves
with making them under her direction.

Mrs. Vardell was so extremely lazy that she would never stoop to pick up
anything she had dropped. If her handkerchief or prayer-book fell to the
floor, she made motions for us to bring them to her; and when we
sometimes mischievously pretended not to understand these signs, she
would let the article remain until some one restored it to her. She
never seemed to experience the least emotion of gratitude, and received
all favors as a natural right. She was an extremely troublesome,
exacting visitor, and we were not at all sorry when the time of her
departure arrived.

My father had exerted himself on their behalf, and at the end of their
visit handed Captain Vardell a handsome sum of money, collected from
among his merchant friends and acquaintances. People were much more
liberal then than now, and the case of the Vardells did not fail to call
forth their sympathy and generosity. The Spanish lady made her adieus,
if so they could be called, with an easy indifference--apparently
considering her fellow-mortals as machines invented for her sole use and
benefit. Captain Vardell presented us children with a handsome
collection of shells, picked up on foreign shores during his numerous
voyages; and some of them were very rare and beautiful. Most of them had
a delicate pink tinge, like the outer leaves of a just-blown rose; and
we amused ourselves fur a long time by arranging them in a glass-case
which my father gave us for the purpose.

Among our visitors was an aunt of my mother's who lived in Waterford,
Connecticut; and being a widow, with quite a large farm to attend to,
her visits were never of long duration. I became very much attached to
her, for she often entertained us with long stories about the Revolution
and the aggressions of the British soldiers--about which you shall hear
when I come to tell you of the long visit I made there one summer. Aunt
Henshaw was very proud of her farm and farming operations; her cattle
and vegetables had several times won the prize at agricultural fairs,
and she boasted that her land produced more than any of her neighbors';
who, being men, were of course expected to be more accom