wants. Let her stay with us as long as she likes, and help in the
kitchen, and take the cow-breath at milking time; and, in a week or
two, she'll begin to look like a creature of this world."

So we sat down again to supper, and Priscilla along with us.



V. UNTIL BEDTIME

Silas Foster, by the time we concluded our meal, had stript off his
coat, and planted himself on a low chair by the kitchen fire, with a
lapstone, a hammer, a piece of sole leather, and some waxed-ends, in
order to cobble an old pair of cowhide boots; he being, in his own
phrase, "something of a dab" (whatever degree of skill that may
imply) at the shoemaking business. We heard the tap of his hammer at
intervals for the rest of the evening. The remainder of the party
adjourned to the sitting-room. Good Mrs. Foster took her
knitting-work, and soon fell fast asleep, still keeping her needles
in brisk movement, and, to the best of my observation, absolutely
footing a stocking out of the texture of a dream. And a very
substantial stocking it seemed to be. One of the two handmaidens
hemmed a towel, and the other appeared to be making a ruffle, for her
Sunday's wear, out of a little bit of embroidered muslin which
Zenobia had probably given her.

It was curious to observe how trustingly, and yet how timidly, our
poor Priscilla betook herself into the shadow of Zenobia's protection.
She sat beside her on a stool, looking up every now and then with
an expression of humble delight at her new friend's beauty. A