to amuse my little brother, knocked into smithareens
with my fractious fist. Why, man, it was not only awful, it all came
true.

Aunt Judy, like most of those antiques, the old-fashioned house-servants
of the South,--coachmen and waiters, nurses and lady's maids,--was a
towering aristocrat: she believed in blood, and was a connoisseur in
pedigrees. Her family pride was lofty, vast, and imposing, and embraced
in the scope of its sympathy whoever could boast of a family Bible
containing a well-filled record of births, marriages, and deaths,--a
dear dead-and-gone inheritance of family portraits, lace, trinkets, and
silver spoons,--a family vault in an Orthodox burial-ground,--and above
all, one or two venerable family servants, just to show "dese mushroom
folks, wid der high-minded notions, how diff'ent things was in ole
missus's time!" Measured by this standard, if you had the misfortune to
be a nobody, Aunt Judy, as a lady, might patronize you, as a Christian,
would cheerfully advise and assist you; but to the exclusive privilege
of what she superbly styled family-arities, you must in vain aspire.
_Our_ family, in the broadest sense of that word, was a large one,--by
blood and marriage a numerous connection; and when Aunt Judy said,
"So-and-so b'longs to our family," she included every man, woman, and
child who could produce the genuine patent of our nobility, and
especially all who had ever worn our livery, from my great-grandfather's
tremendous coachman to the slipshod young gal that "nussed" our last new
cousin's last new baby. Sometimes one of these cousins--quite
telescopic, so distant was the relationship--would come to dine with us.
Then Aunt Judy, in gorgeous turban, immaculate neckerchief, and lively
satisfaction, would be served up in state, our _piece de resistance_.
The guest would compliment her with sympathetic inquiries about the
state of her health, which was always "only tol'able," or "ra-a-ther
poorly," or it "did 'pear as ef she could shuffle round a leetle yit,
praise de Master! But she was a-gettin' older and shacklier every day;
her cough was awful tryin' sometimes, and it 'peared as ef she warn't of
much account, nohow. But de Lord's will be done; when He wanted her, she
reckined He'd call. And how does you find yourself, Miss? And how does
your ma git along wid de servants now? You know she always was a great
hand to be pertickler, Miss; we hadn't sich another young lady in our
family, to be perti