bars of her small grate. Those hearthstones!--when her bare soles
accidentally touched one on winter mornings, Gabriella was of the
opinion that they were the coldest bricks that ever came from a
fiery furnace. There was one thing in the room still colder: the
little cherrywood washstand away over on the other side of the big
room between the windows,--placed there at the greatest possible
distance from the fire! Sometimes when she peeped down into her
wash-pitcher of mornings, the ice bulged up at her like a white
cannon-ball that had gotten lodged on the way out. She jabbed at it
with the handle of her toothbrush; or, if her temper got the best
of her (or the worst), with the poker. Often her last act at night
was to dry her toothbrush over the embers so that the hair in it
would not be frozen in the morning.

Gabriella raised her head from the pillows and peeped over at the
counterpane covering her. It consisted of stripes of different
colors, starting from a point at the middle of the structure and
widening toward the four sides. Her feet were tucked away under a
bank of plum color sprinkled with salt; up her back ran a sort of
comet's tail of puddled green. Over her shoulder and descending
toward her chin, flowed a broadening delta of well-beaten egg.

She was thankful for these colors. The favorite hue of the farmer's
wife was lead. Those hearthstones--lead! The strip of oilcloth
covering the washstand--lead! The closet in the wall containing her
things--lead! The stair-steps outside--lead! The porches down
below--lead! Gabriella sometimes wondered whether this woman might
not have had lead-colored ancestors.

A pair of recalcitrant feet were now heard mounting the stair: the