seemed very glad to see us, and the minister's wife took our hand
bags from us and told the men where to carry our trunks. Mrs.
Shutterfield took us into a little parlor on one side of the hall, and
then we three sat down, and I must say I was so busy looking at the
queer, delightful room, with everything in it--chairs, tables, carpets,
walls, pictures, and flower-vases--all belonging to a bygone epoch,
though perfectly fresh, as if just made, that I could scarcely pay
attention to what the lady said. But I listened enough to know that
Mrs. Shutterfield told us that she had taken the liberty of engaging
for us two most excellent servants, who had lived in the house before
it had been let to lodgers, and who, she was quite sure, would suit us
very well, though, of course, we were at liberty to do what we pleased
about engaging them. The one that I took for the minister's wife was a
combination of cook and housekeeper, by the name of Miss Pondar, and
the other was a maid in general, named Hannah. When the lady mentioned
two servants it took me a little aback, for we had not expected to have
more than one, but when she mentioned the wages, and I found that both
put together did not cost as much as a very poor cook would expect in
America, and when I remembered we as now at work socially booming
ourselves, and that it wouldn't do to let this lady think that we had
not been accustomed to varieties of servants, I spoke up and said we
would engage the two estimable women she recommended, and was much
obliged to her for getting them.

Then we went over that house, down stairs and up, and of all the
lavender-smelling old-fashionedness anybody ever dreamed of, this
little house has as much as it can hold. It is fitted up all through
like one of your mother's bonnets, which she bought before she was
married and never wore on account of a funeral in the family, but kept
shut up in a box, which she only opens now and then to show to her