a small back yard, upon which it stood,
and she spent with some splendor a certain income of three hundred and
eighty-two dollars a year. Every picture, every chair, every mantelpiece
in the Widow Brackett's house was draped with a silk scarf. The parlor
lamp had a glass shade upon which, painted in oils, by hand, were
crimson moss-roses and scarlet poppies. A crushed plush spring rocker
had goldenrod painted on back and seat, while two white-and-gold vases
in precise positions on the mantel were filled with tight round
bunches of immortelles, stained pink. Upon the marble-topped,
carved-by-machine-walnut-legged table in the bay-window were things to
be taken up by a visitor and examined. A white plate with a spreading of
foreign postage-stamps, such as any boy collector has in quantities for
exchange, was the first surprise: you were supposed to discover that the
stamps were not real, but painted on the plate, and exclaim about it. A
china basket contained most edible-looking fruit of the same material,
and a huge album, not to be confounded with the family Bible upon which
it rested, was filled with speaking likenesses of the Widow Brackett's
relatives. The Bible beneath could have told when each was born, when
many had died, and where many were buried. But nobody was ever allowed
to look into the Widow Brackett's Bible for information mundane or
spiritual, since the only result would have been showers of pressed
ferns and flowers upon the carpet, which was not without well-pressed
flowers and ferns of its own.

Very soon after the explosion of the wonderful lamp the Widow Brackett
had taken Aladdin and Jack and the cat into her house and seen to it
that they had a square meal. Early on the second day she came to the
conclusion that if it could in any way be made worth her while, she
would like to keep them until they grew up. And when the ground upon
which Aladdin's father's house had stood was sold at auction for three
hundred and eight dollars, she let it be known that if she could get
that she would board the two little waifs until Aladdin was old enough
to work. The court appointed two guardians. The guardians consulted for
a few minutes over something brown in a glass, and promptly turned over
the three hundred and eight dollars to the Widow Brackett; and the Widow
Brackett almost as promptly made a few alterations in the up-stairs
of her house the better to accommodate the orphans, tied a dirty white
ribbon ab