There was that also in her sinuous yet malleable nature, so full of
guile and so full of goodness, that reminded us pleasantly of lowly
folks in elder lands, where relaxing oppressions have lifted the
restraints of fear between master and servant, without disturbing the
familiarity of their relation. She advised freely with us upon all
household matters, and took a motherly interest in whatever concerned
us. She could be flattered or caressed into almost any service, but no
threat or command could move her. When she erred she never acknowledged
her wrong in words, but handsomely expressed her regrets in a pudding,
or sent up her apologies in a favorite dish secretly prepared. We grew
so well used to this form of exculpation, that, whenever Mrs. Johnson
took an afternoon at an inconvenient season, we knew that for a week
afterwards we should be feasted like princes. She owned frankly that she
loved us, that she never had done half so much for people before, and
that she never had been nearly so well suited in any other place; and
for a brief and happy time we thought that we never should part.

One day, however, our dividing destiny appeared in the basement, and was
presented to us as Hippolyto Thucydides, the son of Mrs. Johnson, who
had just arrived on a visit to his mother from the State of New
Hampshire. He was a heavy and loutish youth, standing upon the borders
of boyhood, and looking forward to the future with a vacant and listless
eye. I mean this was his figurative attitude; his actual manner, as he
lolled upon a chair beside the kitchen window, was so eccentric that we
felt a little uncertain how to regard him, and Mrs. Johnson openly
described him as peculiar. He was so deeply tanned by the fervid suns
of the New Hampshire winter, and his hair had so far suffered from the
example of the sheep lately under his charge, that he could not be
classed by any stretch of comparison with the blonde and straight-haired
members of Mrs. Johnson's family.