dismal weather. Our household, being
composed in great measure of children and young people, is generally a
cheerful one enough, even in gloomy weather. For a week past we have
been especially gladdened with a little seamstress from Boston, about
seventeen years old; but of such a _petite_ figure, that, at first view,
one would take her to be hardly in her teens. She is very vivacious and
smart, laughing and singing and talking all the time,--talking sensibly;
but still, taking the view of matters that a city girl naturally would.
If she were larger than she is, and of less pleasing aspect, I think she
might be intolerable; but being so small, and with a fair skin, and as
healthy as a wildflower, she is really very agreeable; and to look at
her face is like being shone upon by a ray of the sun. She never walks,
but bounds and dances along, and this motion, in her diminutive person,
does not give the idea of violence. It is like a bird, hopping from twig
to twig, and chirping merrily all the time. Sometimes she is rather
vulgar, but even that works well enough into her character, and accords
with it. On continued observation, one discovers that she is not a
little girl, but really a little woman, with all the prerogatives and
liabilities of a woman. This gives a new aspect to her, while the
girlish impression still remains, and is strangely combined with the
sense that this frolicsome maiden has the material for the sober bearing
of a wife. She romps with the boys, runs races with them in the yard,
and up and down the stairs, and is heard scolding laughingly at their
rough play. She asks William Allen to place her "on top of that horse,"
whereupon he puts his large brown hands about her waist, and, swinging
her to and fro, lifts her on horseback. William threatens to rivet two
horse-shoes round her neck, for having clambered, with the other girls
and boys, upon a load of hay, whereby the said load lost its balance and
slid off the cart. She strings the seed-berries of roses together,
making a scarlet necklace of them, which she fastens about her throat.
She gathers flowers of everlasting to wear in her bonnet, arranging them
with the skill of a dressmaker. In the evening, she sits singing by the
hour, with the musical part of the establishment, often breaking into
laughter, whereto she is incited by the tricks of the boys. The last
thing one hears of her, she is tripping up stairs to bed, talking
lightsomely or warbling;