"orders gray,"
"but when one has a _gift_ it's hard to keep it back. I don't always
know myself what I'm going to tell, but speak as I'm moved, as the Bible
men used to do in old times. Every body has a way and a taste of their
own, I know, and some take to one thing, and some to another. Now, I
always did take to what some folks thinks dreadful things. Perhaps it's
because I've been a lone woman, and led a sort of spiritual life. I
never took any pleasure in merry-making and frolicking. I'd rather go to
a funeral than a wedding, any day, and I'd rather look at a shrouded
corpse, than a bride tricked out in her laces and flowers. I know it's
strange, but it's true--and there's no use in going against the natural
grain. You can't do it. If I take up a newspaper, I see the deaths and
murders before anything else. They stare one right in the face, and I
don't see anything else."

"What a very peculiar temperament," said Mrs. Gleason, thoughtfully.
"Were you conscious of the same tastes when a child?"

"I can hardly remember being a child. It seems to me I never was one. I
always had such old feelings. My father and mother died when I was a
baby. There was nobody left but my brother--and--me. He was the
strangest being that ever lived. He locked up his heart and kept the
key, so nobody could get a peep inside. I had nobody to love, nobody who
loved me, so I got to loving my spinning-wheel and my own thoughts. When
brother fell sick and grew nervous and peevish, he didn't like the hum
of the wheel, and I had to spin at night in the chimney corner, by the
flash of the embers, and the company I was to myself the Lord only
knows. I'll tell you what, Mrs. Gleason," added she, taking her
spectacles from her forehead, wiping them carefully, and then putting
them right on the top of her head, "God didn't mean every body to be
alike. Some look up and some look down, but if they've got the right
spirit, they're all looking after God and truth. If I talk of the grave
more than common, it's because I know it's nothing but an underground
passage to eternity."

"I thank God for teaching me to look upward at last," cried Mrs.
Gleason, and the quick, panting breath of little Helen was heard
distinctly in the silence that followed. Her soul reached forward
anxiously into futurity. If it were possible to change Miss Thusa's
opinions and peculiarities into something after the similitude of her
kind! Change Miss Thusa! As soon might you exp