han any within the memory of any
tea-table gossip in the vicinity. Mrs. Kittridge, therefore, looked
forward to the funeral services on Sunday afternoon as to a species of
solemn fete, which imparted a sort of consequence to her dwelling and
herself. Notice of it was to be given out in "meeting" after service,
and she might expect both keeping-room and kitchen to be full. Mrs.
Pennel had offered to do her share of Christian and neighborly
kindness, in taking home to her own dwelling the little boy. In fact, it
became necessary to do so in order to appease the feelings of the little
Mara, who clung to the new acquisition with most devoted fondness, and
wept bitterly when he was separated from her even for a few moments.
Therefore, in the afternoon of the day when the body was found, Mrs.
Pennel, who had come down to assist, went back in company with Aunt Ruey
and the two children.

The September evening set in brisk and chill, and the cheerful fire that
snapped and roared up the ample chimney of Captain Kittridge's kitchen
was a pleasing feature. The days of our story were before the advent of
those sullen gnomes, the "air-tights," or even those more sociable and
cheery domestic genii, the cooking-stoves. They were the days of the
genial open kitchen-fire, with the crane, the pot-hooks, and
trammels,--where hissed and boiled the social tea-kettle, where steamed
the huge dinner-pot, in whose ample depths beets, carrots, potatoes, and
turnips boiled in jolly sociability with the pork or corned beef which
they were destined to flank at the coming meal.

On the present evening, Miss Roxy sat bolt upright, as was her wont, in
one corner of the fireplace, with her spectacles on her nose, and an
unwonted show of candles on the little stand beside her, having resumed
the task of the silk dress which had been for a season interrupted. Mrs.
Kittridge, with her spectacles also mounted, was carefully and warily
"running-up breadths," stopping every few minutes to examine her work,
and to inquire submissively of Miss Roxy if "it will do?"

Captain Kittridge sat in the other corner busily whittling on a little
boat which he was shaping to please Sally, who sat on a low stool by his
side with her knitting, evidently more intent on what her father was
producing than on the evening task of "ten bouts," which her mother
exacted before she could freely give her mind to anything on her own
account. As Sally was rigorously sent to bed exac