shawl round you, and then pull your arms about my neck. There: now
we'll go."

She lifted the child as she spoke, and carried her again into the
front entry, and up the square staircase to a cottage-chamber with
white, scoured floor, common pine furniture, the cheapest of white
earthern toilet-sets, and nothing of expense or luxury to be found
within its four whitewashed walls, and yet a room that gave one a
feeling of satisfaction and peace not always inhabiting far wider
and more costly chambers: for the little bed was artistically
composed, and covered with snow-white dimity, as was the table
between the windows, and the cushion of the wooden rocking-chair;
while curtains of the same material, escaped from their tri-colored
fastenings, floated in upon the soft breeze like great sails, or the
draperies of twilight spirits departing before mortal presence.

In the fireplace stood a large pitcher, filled with common flowers,
fresh and odorous; and upon the high mantle-shelf, and all around
the room, was disposed a collection of the oddest ornaments that
ever decked a young girl's sleeping-chamber. Among them we will but
pause to mention two muskets, the one bent, the other splintered at
the stock; four swords, each more or less disabled; an officer's
sash; three sets of shoulder-straps; a string of army-buttons, each
with a name written upon a strip of paper, and tied to the eye; two
or three dozen bone rings, of more or less elaborate workmanship,
disposed upon the branches of a little tree carved of pine; a large
collection of crosses, hearts, clasped hands, dogs'-heads, and other
trinkets, in bone, some white, and some stained black; a careful
drawing of a crooked and grotesque old negro, in a frame of carved
wood; and, finally, a suit of clothes hung against the wall in the