Lemorne Versus Huell
Elizabeth Drew Stoddard
Harper's New Monthly Magazine 26 (1863): 537-43.



The two months I spent at Newport with Aunt Eliza Huell, who had
been ordered to the sea-side for the benefit of her health, were
the months that created all that is dramatic in my destiny. My aunt
was troublesome, for she was not only out of health, but in a
lawsuit. She wrote to me, for we lived apart, asking me to
accompany her--not because she was fond of me, or wished to give me
pleasure, but because I was useful in various ways. Mother insisted
upon my accepting her invitation, not because she loved her late
husband's sister, but because she thought it wise to cotton to her
in every particular, for Aunt Eliza was rich, and we--two lone
women--were poor.

I gave my music-pupils a longer and earlier vacation than usual,
took a week to arrange my wardrobe--for I made my own dresses--and
then started for New York, with the five dollars which Aunt Eliza
had sent for my fare thither. I arrived at her house in Bond Street
at 7 A.M., and found her man James in conversation with the
milkman. He informed me that Miss Huell was very bad, and that the
housekeeper was still in bed. I supposed that Aunt Eliza was in bed
also, but I had hardly entered the house when I heard her bell ring
as she only could ring it--with an impatient jerk.

"She wants hot milk," said James, "and the man has just come."