tal poetry, and keeping a store thereof in her thread-case,
which she had cut from the "Christian Mirror." Miss Roxy sometimes, in
her brusque way, popped out observations on life and things, with a
droll, hard quaintness that took one's breath a little, yet never failed
to have a sharp crystallization of truth,--frosty though it were. She
was one of those sensible, practical creatures who tear every veil, and
lay their fingers on every spot in pure business-like good-will; and if
we shiver at them at times, as at the first plunge of a cold bath, we
confess to an invigorating power in them after all.

"Well, now," said Miss Roxy, giving a decisive push to the tea-pot,
which buried it yet deeper in the embers, "ain't it all a strange kind
o' providence that this 'ere little thing is left behind so; and then
their callin' on her by such a strange, mournful kind of name,--Mara. I
thought sure as could be 'twas Mary, till the minister read the passage
from Scriptur'. Seems to me it's kind o' odd. I'd call it Maria, or I'd
put an Ann on to it. Mara-ann, now, wouldn't sound so strange."

"It's a Scriptur' name, sister," said Aunt Ruey, "and that ought to be
enough for us."

"Well, I don't know," said Aunt Roxy. "Now there was Miss Jones down on
Mure P'int called her twins Tiglath-Pileser and Shalmaneser,--Scriptur'
names both, but I never liked 'em. The boys used to call 'em, Tiggy and
Shally, so no mortal could guess they was Scriptur'."

"Well," said Aunt Ruey, drawing a sigh which caused her plump
proportions to be agitated in gentle waves, "'tain't much matter, after
all, _what_ they call the little thing, for 'tain't 'tall likely it's
goin' to live,--cried and worried all night, and kep' a-suckin' my cheek
and my night-gown, poor little thing! This 'ere's a baby that won't get
along without its mother. What Mis' Pennel's a-goin' to do with it when
we is gone, I'm sure I don't know. It comes kind o' hard on old people
to be broke o' their rest. If it's goin' to be called home, it's a pity,
as I said, it didn't go with its mother"--

"And save the expense of another funeral," said Aunt Roxy. "Now when
Mis' Pennel's sister asked her what she was going to do with Naomi's
clothes, I couldn't help wonderin' when she said she should keep 'em for
the child."

"She had a sight of things, Naomi did," said Aunt Ruey. "Nothin' was
never too much for her. I don't believe that Cap'n Pennel ever went to
Bath or Portland without h