breast, and tilting her wan face back with an
imperious air, she exclaimed sententiously, "W'y,
Mary Alice Smith is me--that's who Mary Alice
Smith is!"

It was not long, however, before her usual bright
and infectious humor was restored, and we were
soon piloting the little stranger here and there about
the house, and laughing at the thousand funny little
things she said and did. The winding stairway in
the hall quite dazed her with delight. Up and down
she went a hundred times, it seemed. And she
would talk and whisper to herself, and oftentimes
would stop and nestle down and rest her pleased
face close against the steps and pat one softly with
her slender hand, peering curiously down at us
with half-averted eyes. And she counted them and
named them, every one, as she went up and down.

"I'm mighty glad I'm come to live in this-here
house," she said.

We asked her why.

"Oh, 'cause," she said, starting up the stairs again
by an entirely novel and original method of her
own--" 'cause Uncle Tomps ner Aunt 'Lizabeth
don't live here; and when they ever come here to
git their dinners, like they will ef you don't watch
out, w'y, then I kin slip out here on these-here