Profession had she none; neither a permanent home, but for twenty years
she had wandered hither and thither, in highly independent fashion,
turning her hand to whatever seemed to require its cunning. A better
housekeeper never might have lived, if she could have stuck to one spot;
an admirable cook, nurse, seamstress, and spinner, she refused alike the
high wages of wealthy farmers and the hands of poor widowers. She had a
little money of her own, but never refused payment from those who were
able to give it, in order that she might now and then make a present of
her services to poorer friends. Her speech was blunt and rough, her ways
odd and eccentric; her name was rarely mentioned without a laugh, but
those who laughed at her esteemed her none the less. In those days of
weekly posts and one newspaper, she was Politics, Art, Science, and
Literature to many families.

In person, Miss Betsy Lavender was peculiar rather than attractive. She
was nearly, if not quite fifty years of age, rather tall, and a little
stoop-shouldered. Her face, at first sight, suggested that of a horse,
with its long, ridged nose, loose lips and short chin. Her eyes were
dull gray, set near together, and much sharper in their operation than a
stranger would suppose. Over a high, narrow forehead she wore thin bands
of tan-colored hair, somewhat grizzled, and forming a coil at the back
of her head, barely strong enough to hold the teeth of an enormous
tortoise-shell comb. Yet her grotesqueness had nothing repellant; it was
a genial caricature, at which no one could take offence. "The very
person I wanted to see!" cried Sally. "Father and mother are going up to
Uncle John's this afternoon; Aunt Eliza has an old woman's
quilting-party, and they'll stay all night, and however am I to manage
Joe and Jake by myself? Martha's half promised to come, but not till
after supper. It will all go right, since you are here; come into
mother's room and take off your things!"