was subject; and the next room on the other side was
occupied by Jo Briscoe, who had a habit of playing on his violin at most
unseemly hours, and, as poor Jo had come through a terrible shipwreck,
in which he had lost, by freezing, both his feet and several of his
fingers, which latter loss made it wonderful that he could play at all,
nobody had the heart to interfere with the consolation which "Fisher's
Hornpipe" and "The Girl I left behind me" afforded him at three o'clock
in the morning,--nobody, that is, except "Marm Bony," whose room was on
the other side of the corridor, and who took Jo's performances as a
serenade, and gently insinuated to him that, as Napoleon was still
living, she might be compromised by such tributes to her charms.
Although she was anxious not to accept any privileges on account of her
wealth, Miranda thought she would occupy the spare chamber.

The paupers were all disposed to keep holiday in Miranda's honor. Old
Cap'n 'Kiah had donned a collar so high that it sawed agonizingly upon
his ears, little Dr. Pingree, a peddler of roots and herbs, who was
occasionally obliged to seek winter quarters at the poor-house, wore a
black satin vest brocaded with huge blue roses, which had appeared at
his wedding forty years before, and "Marm Bony" had adorned herself with
a skimpy green satin skirt and three peacock-feathers standing upright
in her little knob of back hair. And Jo Briscoe was tuning his violin,
evidently in preparation for an unusual effort.

A vague idea that Miranda had arrived at great honor had penetrated poor
"Marm Bony's" bewildered brain, and a fancy suddenly seized her that
Miranda was the unscrupulous Marie Louise who had supplanted her as
Napoleon's wife, and she hobbled out of the room in great agitation and
wrath, her peacock-feathers waving wildly in the air. She returned in a
few minutes, however, and whispered to Miranda that, "as Napoleon wa'n't
jest what he'd ought to be anyway, mebbe they'd better make up." To
which proposition Miranda assented gravely, holding the wrinkled,
trembling old hand tenderly in hers.

Cap'n 'Kiah felt it incumbent upon him to lead the conversation, being
modestly conscious of his social gifts.

He had been a ship-owner, and very well-to-do, until in his old age he
was robbed of all his property by a younger brother whom he had brought
up and cared for as a son. But the old man had brought to this low level
of society to which he had sunk a