mourning-pieces by way of decoration, inscribed with the names of Mrs.
Patton's departed friends,--two worked in crewel to the memory of her
father and mother, and two paper memorials, with the woman weeping under
the willow at the side of a monument. They were all brown with age; and
there was a sampler beside, worked by "Judith Beckett, aged ten," and
all five were framed in slender black frames and hung very high on the
walls. There was a rocking-chair which looked as if it felt too grand
for use, and considered itself imposing. It tilted far back on its
rockers, and was bent forward at the top to make one's head
uncomfortable. It need not have troubled itself; nobody would ever wish
to sit there. It was such a big rocking-chair, and Mrs. Patton was proud
of it; always generously urging her guests to enjoy its comfort, which
was imaginary with her, as she was so short that she could hardly have
climbed into it without assistance.

Mrs. Patton was a little ceremonious at first, but soon recovered
herself and told us a great deal which we were glad to hear. I asked her
once if she had not always lived at Deephaven. "Here and beyond East
Parish," said she. "Mr. Patton,--that was my husband,--he owned a good
farm there when I married him, but I come back here again after he died;
place was all mortgaged. I never got a cent, and I was poorer than when
I started. I worked harder 'n ever I did before or since to keep things
together, but 't wasn't any kind o' use. Your mother knows all about it,
Miss Kate,"--as if we might not be willing to believe it on her
authority. "I come back here a widow and destitute, and I tell you the
world looked fair to me when I left this house first to go over there.
Don't you run no risks, you're better off as you be, dears. But land
sakes alive, 'he' didn't mean no hurt! and he set everything by me when
he was himself. I don't make no scruples of speaking about it, everybody
knows how it was, but I did go through with everything. I never knew