as being paid me, and a thrill of satisfaction used to go
over me for my consequence and importance. A handful of sugar-plums
would have seemed nothing beside this entertainment. I used to be
careful not to crumble the cake, and I used to eat it with my gloves on,
and a pleasant fragrance would cling for some time afterward to the ends
of the short Lisle-thread fingers. I have no doubt that my manners as I
took leave were almost as distinguished as those of my hostess, though I
might have been wild and shy all the rest of the week. It was not many
years ago that I went to my old friend's funeral--and saw them carry her
down the long, wide walk, between the tall box borders which were her
pride; and all the air was heavy and sweet with the perfume of the early
summer blossoms; the white lilacs and the flowering currants were still
in bloom, and the rows of her dear Dutch tulips stood dismayed in their
flaunting colors and watched her go away.

My sketch of the already out-of-date or fast vanishing village fashions
perhaps should be ended here, but I cannot resist a wish to add another
bit of autobiography of which I have been again and again reminded in
writing these pages. The front yard I knew best belonged to my
grandfather's house. My grandmother was a proud and solemn woman, and
she hated my mischief, and rightly thought my elder sister a much better
child than I. I used to be afraid of her when I was in the house, but I
shook off even her authority and forgot I was under anybody's rule when
I was out of doors. I was first cousin to a caterpillar if they called
me to come in, and I was own sister to a giddy-minded bobolink when I
ran away across the fields, as I used to do very often. But when I was a
very little child indeed my world was bounded by the fences that were
around my home; there were wide green yards and tall elm-trees to shade
them; there was a long line of barns and sheds, and one of these had a
large room in its upper story, with an old ship's foresail spread over
the floor, and made a capital play-room in wet weather. Here fruit was
spread in the fall, and there were some old chests and pieces of
furniture that had been discarded; it was like the garret, only much
pleasanter. The children in the village now cannot possibly be so happy
as I was then. I used to mount the fence next the street and watch the
people go in and out of the quaint-roofed village shops that stood in a
row on the other side, an