ness, and knew how to brew every old-fashioned dose and to make
every variety of herb-tea, and when her nursing was put to an end by her
patient's death, she was commander-in-chief at the funeral, and stood
near the doorway to direct the mourning friends to their seats; and I
have no reason to doubt that she sometimes even had the immense
responsibility of making out the order of the procession, since she had
all genealogy and relationship at her tongue's end. It was an awful
thing in Deephaven, we found, if the precedence was wrongly assigned,
and once we chanced to hear some bitter remarks because the cousins of
the departed wife had been placed after the husband's relatives,--"the
blood-relations ridin' behind them that was only kin by marriage! I
don't wonder they felt hurt!" said the person who spoke; a most
unselfish and unassuming soul, ordinarily.

Mrs. Patton knew everybody's secrets, but she told them judiciously if
at all. She chattered all day to you as a sparrow twitters, and you did
not tire of her; and Kate and I were never more agreeably entertained
than when she told us of old times and of Kate's ancestors and their
contemporaries; for her memory was wonderful, and she had either seen
everything that had happened in Deephaven for a long time, or had
received the particulars from reliable witnesses. She had known much
trouble; her husband had been but small satisfaction to her, and it was
not to be wondered at if she looked upon all proposed marriages with
compassion. She was always early at church, and she wore the same bonnet
that she had when Kate was a child; it was such a well-preserved, proper
black straw bonnet, with discreet bows of ribbon, and a useful lace veil
to protect it from the weather.

She showed us into the best room the first time we went to see her. It
was the plainest little room, and very dull, and there was an exact
sufficiency about its furnishings. Yet there was a certain dignity about
it; it was unmistakably a best room, and not a place where one might
make a litter or carry one's every-day work. You felt at once that
somebody valued the prim old-fashioned chairs, and the two half-moon
tables, and the thin carpet, which must have needed anxious stretching
every spring to make it come to the edge of the floor. There were some
mourning-pieces by way of decoration, inscribed with the names of Mrs.
Patton's departed friends,--two worked in crewel to the memory of her
father and mo