h, and standing over him, with eye-balls
distended--making ineffectual efforts to speak--was the husband of
Aunt Polly. When the lad recovered, all that he could tell of his
mishap was, that on opening the street-door a man, wrapped in a large
over-coat, with glassy eyes staring straight at him, opened and shut
his mouth four times without uttering a syllable--when the candle
fell from his hands, and he to the floor! Aunt Polly's spouse was the
prince of stammerers! But if he could seldom _begin_ a sentence, so
Aunt Polly could seldom _finish_ one: indeed the most noticeable
_point_ in her conversation was, that it had _no_ point, or was made
up of sentences broken off in the middle. This may have been
physiologically owing to the velocity with which the nervous fluid
passed through her brain, giving uncommon rapidity to her thoughts,
and correspondingly to the motions of her body. It soon became a
wonder to my girlish mind how Aunt Polly ever kept still long enough
to listen to a declaration of love--especially from a stutterer--or
even to respond to the marriage ceremony.

My wonder now is, how the functions of her system ever had time to
fulfill their offices, or the flesh to accumulate, as it did, to a
very respectable consistency; for she never, to my knowledge, finished
a meal while under our roof; nor do I believe that she ever slept
_out_ a nap in her life. As she became a study well fitted to interest
one of my novel, fun-loving age, I used often to steal out of bed at
different times in the night and peep from my own apartment into hers,
which adjoined it, where a night lamp was always burning; for she
insisted on having the door between left open. I invariably found
those eyes of hers wide awake, and my own room being dark, took
pleasure in watching her unobserved, as she fidgeted now with her
ample-bordered night-cap, and now with the bed-clothes. Once was I
caught by a sudden cough on my part, which brought Aunt Polly to her
feet before I had time to slip back to bed; and the only plea that my
guiltiness could make her kind remonstrance on my being up in the
cold, was the very natural and very wicked fib, that I heard her move
and thought she might want something. Unsuspecting old lady! May her
ashes at least rest in peace! How she caught me in her arms, kissed
and carried me to bed, tucking in the blankets so effectually that all
attempts to get up again that night were vain! Oh, she was a love of
an aunt