o
the house for twenty years. The family are all scattered."

"I have none either," I said. "Shall we take each other on trust?"

"If you are willing," she laughed.

And so we selected each other, and I am just as much flattered as she
could possibly be, for neither one so far has given the other notice.

This sketch can only serve to introduce her, as it would take a book to
do her justice. She has snow-white hair and a face in which decision
and kindness are mingled. She has a tongue which drops blessings and
denunciations with equal facility. Born of Irish parents, she belongs
to the gentry, yet no fighting Irishman could match her temper when
roused, and the Billingsgate which passes through the dumb-waiter
between our Mary and the tradespeople is enough to turn the colour of
the walls. Yet though I have seen her pull a recreant grocery boy in
by his hair, literally by his hair, tradesmen, one and all, adore her,
and do errands for her which ought to earn their discharge, and they
bring her the pick of the market to avoid having anything less choice
thrown in their faces when they come for the next order. She made the
ice-man grind coffee for her for a week because he once forgot to come
up and put the ice into the refrigerator.

She went among all the tradespeople, and named prices to them which we
were to pay if they obtained our valuable patronage. One little man
who kept a sort of general store was so impressed by her manner and the
awful lies she told about the grandeur of her employers that he
presented her with a pitcher in the shape of the figure of Napoleon.
Something so very absurd happened in connection with this pitcher some
three years later that I particularly remembered the time she got it,
and the little man who gave it to her.

She kept house for seven years in Paris, which explains her reverence
for food, for we have discovered that the only way to dispose of things
is to eat them. Otherwise, in different guises, they return to us
until in desperation the Angel sprinkles cigar-ashes over what is left.
She pays all the bills and contests her rights to the last penny, once
keeping the baker out of his whole bill for five months because he
would not recognize her claim for a receipted bill for eight cents
which she had paid at the door. As to her relation to us in a social
way, those of you who have lived in the South will understand her
privileges, when I say that she is a white "Mamm