et me wash them, Emily, your hands tremble so." Then I tried to
exorcise the demon within, and I said:

"How can we have a stranger here, putting on airs, and Hal going away,
and our home probably too homely for her. I know she never washed her
hands in a blue wash-bowl in the world, much less in a pewter basin such
as we use. She'll want everything we haven't got, and I shall tip
everything over, and be as awkward as--oh, dear! Mother, how I do wish I
could be ground over and put in good shape before to-morrow night." I
never saw my mother laugh so heartily in my life; she laughed till I was
fairly frightened and thought she had a hysteric fit, and when she could
speak, said:

"Emily, don't borrow trouble, it may make Hal's departure easier for us.
It must be right for her to come, else it would not have happened. You
are growing so like a careful woman, I doubt not you will be the very
one to please her."

Those words were a sort of strengthening cordial, and before I went to
sleep I had firmly determined to receive my cousin as I would one of my
neighbors, and not allow my spirit to chafe itself against the wall of
conditions, whatever they might be.

So when the stage came over the hill, and round the turn in the road
leading to our house, I stood quietly with mother in the doorway waiting
to give the strange guest welcome in our midst. I was the first to take
her hand, for the blundering stage-driver nearly let her fall to the
ground, her foot missing the step as she clambered over the side of the
old stage. She gave me such a warm smile of recognition, and a moment
after turned to us all and said, "My name is Clara Estelle Desmonde,
call me Clara,"--and with hearty hand-shaking passed into the house as
one of us. Her hat and traveling mantle laid aside, she was soon seated
at the table with us, and chatting merrily, praising every dish before
her, and since her appetite did justice to her words, we did not feel
her praise as flattery. I had made some of my snow cake, and it was the
best, I think, I ever made. Mother had cream biscuit, blackberry jelly,
some cold fowl, and, to tempt the appetite of our city visitor, a few of
the old speckled hen's finest and freshest eggs, dropped on toast. She
did not slight any of our cooking, and my cake was particularly praised.
When mother told her I made it, the little lady looked at me so brightly
as she said, "You must keep plenty of it on hand as long as I stay, I am
e