to the name. She had an equal abhorrence to
being addressed as _Mrs._, an honor frequently bestowed on venerable
spinsters. She said it did not belong to her, and she disdained to shine
in borrowed colors. So she retained her virgin distinction, which she
declared no earthly consideration would induce her to resign.

She had formerly lived with a bachelor brother, a sickly misanthropist,
who had long shunned the world, and, as a natural consequence, was
neglected by it. But when it was known that the invalid was growing
weaker and weaker, and entirely dependent on the cares of his lonely
sister, the sympathies of strangers were awakened, and forcing their way
into the chamber of the sick man, they administered to his sufferings
and wants, till Miss Thusa learned to estimate, at its true value, the
kindness she at first repelled. After the death of the brother, the
families which composed the neighborhood where they dwelt, feeling
compassion for her loneliness and sorrow, invited her to divide her time
among them, and make their homes her own. One of her eccentricities (and
she had more than one,) was a passion for spinning on a little wheel.
Its monotonous hum had long been the music of her lonely life; the
distaff, with its swaddling bands of flax, the petted child of her
affections, and the thread which she manufactured the means of her daily
support. Wherever she went, her wheel preceded her, as an _avant
courier_, after the fashion of the shields of ancient warriors.

"Ah! Miss Thusa's coming--I know it by her wheel!" was the customary
exclamation, sometimes uttered in a tone of vexation, but more
frequently of satisfaction. She was so original and eccentric, had such
an inexhaustible store of ghost stories and fairy tales, sang so many
crazy old ballads, that children gathered round her, as a Sibylline
oracle, and mothers, who were not troubled with a superfluity of
servants, were glad to welcome one to their household who had such a
wondrous talent for amusing them, and keeping them still. In spite of
all her oddities, she was respected for her industry and simplicity, and
a certain quaint, old-fashioned, superstitious piety, that made a streak
of light through her character.

Grateful for the kindness and hospitality so liberally extended towards
her, she never left a household without a gift of the most beautiful,
even, fine, flaxen thread for the family use. Indeed the fame of her
spinning spread far and wide