life, with some kind of curly writing over it; it was simply
beautiful. There was a clock on the marble mantel-piece, tall and
square-cornered, with a clear circle in the glass below where you could
see the round weight of the pendulum go back and forth, and a picture
of the sun on the face, very red, with a big nose and eyes, and stiff
red hair floating off from it.

Aunt Amanda stuck a pin in the goods in her lap and folded her hands.
Freddie, after glancing around the room, looked at her again and
wondered who she was; plain sewing she was, that was sure, also an aunt;
and besides that, although Freddie did not know it, she was an old--I
hate to say it, though it wasn't anything really against her, if you
come to that,--an old--well, you know what you call them behind their
backs, or shout after them as they go down the street and then whip
around the corner when they turn, just simply because they haven't ever
been married, like Mother,--well, then, an Old Maid.

Being an Old Maid, she of course wore no wedding ring; but on her
wedding-finger, the third finger of her left hand, there was a mark at
the place where a wedding ring would have been; a kind of birth-mark,
ruby red, in shape and size like the ruby stone of a ring. Freddie
looked at it often afterwards.

"Now you look here, Aunt Amanda," said her nephew, taking hold of
Freddie's hand again, "you know well enough I can't understand you with
all them pins--"

Aunt Amanda put a hand to her lips and drew out of her mouth a pin and
stuck it in the bosom of her dress. She put her hand to her lips again
and drew forth another pin and stuck it in the bosom of her dress. She
drew forth another and another, and stuck each one in her dress.
Freddie's eyes opened wide; did this lady eat pins? Her mouth seemed to
be full of them; didn't they hurt? It didn't seem possible she could eat
them, and yet there they were. No wonder she couldn't talk plainly.
There seemed to be no end to the pins, but there was, and at last her
mouth was clear of them so that she could talk.

"Toby Littleback," said she, "you're up to one o' your tricks again.
Ain't you ashamed of yourself?" That was what she had meant by saying,
"Obelilackyoomuptwonyerix," with her mouth full of pins.

Toby was quite crestfallen. "Well," he said, "I guess it ain't no
hangin' matter. All I done was to bring the boy in to see you. 'N' this
is what I get fer it every time. I ain't a-going to bring 'em in a