fastened the buttons on his blue overalls, or even gave him a
spoonful of "meddy" out of a big bottle, at the mere sight of which
Ellen shuddered sympathetically; a dose which was always followed by
two marshmallows, out of a tin box, by way of consolation. But
further than this she dared not go, except in the matter of mugs of
milk, gingerbread, saucer-pies, and motherly kisses for any bump or
bruise.

The village women, coming up to the Hall, in the pleasant summer
afternoons, were puzzled to find the old place almost unchanged. Why
any woman in her senses wanted to live among those early-Victorian
horrors, the women of Santa Paloma could not imagine. But Mrs.
Burgoyne never apologized for the old walnut chairs and tables, and
the old velvet carpets, and the hopelessly old-fashioned white lace
curtains and gilt-framed mirrors. Even Captain Holly's big clock--
"an impossibly hideous thing," Mrs. White called the frantic bronze
horses and the clinging tiger, on their onyx hillside--was serenely
ticking, and the pink china vases were filled with flowers. And
there was an air of such homely comfort, after all, about the big
rooms, such a fragrance of flowers, and flood of sunny fresh air,
that the whole effect was not half as bad as it might be imagined;
indeed, when Mammy Curry, the magnificent old negress who was
supreme in the kitchen and respected in the nursery as well, came in
with her stiff white apron and silver tea-tray, she seemed to fit
into the picture, and add a completing touch to the whole.

Very simply, very unpretentiously, the new mistress of Holly Hall
entered upon her new life. She was a woman of very quiet tastes,
devoted to her little girls, her music, her garden and her books.
With the negress, she had one other servant, a quiet little New