was the principal of our family miss or miss as my poor mother always called her when she sufficiently overcame her dread of this formidable personage to mention her at all which was seldom had been married to a husband younger than herself who was very handsome except in the sense of the homely handsome is that handsome does � for he was strongly suspected of having beaten miss and even of having once on a disputed question of supplies made some hasty but determined arrangements to throw her out of a two pair of stairs window these evidences of an of temper induced miss to pay him off and effect a separation by mutual consent he went to india with his capital and there according to a wild legend in our family he was once seen riding on an elephant in company with a but i think it must have been a or a any how from india of david b tidings of his death reached home within ten years how they affected my aunt nobody knew for immediately upon the separation she took her maiden name again bought a cottage in a hamlet on the sea coast a long way off established herself there as a single woman with one servant and was understood to live secluded ever afterwards in an my father had once been a favorite of hers i believe but she was by his marriage on the ground that my mother was a wax doll she had never seen my mother but she knew her to be not yet twenty my father and miss never met again he was double my mother s age when he married and of but a delicate constitution he died a year afterwards and as i have said six months before i came into the world this was the state of matters on the afternoon of what j may be excused for calling that and important friday i can make no claim therefore to have known at that time how matters stood or to have any remembrance founded on the evidence of my own senses of what follows my mother was sitting by the fire but poorly in health and very low in spirits looking at it through her tears and heavily about herself and the little stranger who was already welcomed by some of prophetic pins in a drawer up stairs to a world not at all excited on the subject of his arrival my mother i say was sitting by the fire that bright windy march afternoon very timid and sad and very doubtful of ever coming alive out of the trial that was before her when lifting her eyes as she dried them to the window opposite she saw a strange lady coming up the garden my mother had a sure at the second glance that it was miss the setting sun was glowing on the strange lady over the garden fence and she came walking up to the door with a fell of figure and composure of countenance that could have belonged to nobody else when she reached the house she gave another proof of her identity my father had often hinted that she seldom conducted herself like any ordinary christian and now instead of ringing the bell she came and looked in at that identical window pressing the end of her nose against the glass to that extent that my poor dear mother used to say it became perfectly flat and white in a moment she gave my mother such a turn that i have always been convinced i am indebted to miss for having been born on a friday my mother had left her chair in her agitation and gone behind it in the corner miss looking round the room slowly and began on the other side and carried her eyes on uke a s head in a dutch clock until they reached my mother then she made a frown and a gesture to my mother like one who was accustomed to be obeyed to come and open the door my mother w ent mrs david i think said miss the emphasis referring perhaps to my mother s mourning weeds and her condition yes said my mother faintly the personal history and miss said the visitor you have heard of hot i dare say my mother answered she had had that pleasure and she had a disagreeable consciousness of not appearing to imply that it had been an overpowering pleasure now you see her said miss my mother bent her head and begged lier to walk in they w ent into the parlor my mother had come from the fire in the room on the other side of the passage not being lighted � not been lighted indeed since my father s funeral and when they were both seated and miss said nothing my mother after vainly trying to restrain herself began to cry oh tut tut tut said miss in a don t do that come come my mother couldn t help it notwithstanding so she cried until she had had her cry out take off your cap child said miss and let me see you my mother was too much afraid of her to refuse compliance with this odd request if she had any disposition to do so therefore she did as she was told and did it with such nervous hands that her hair which was luxuriant and beautiful fell all about her face why bless my heart exclaimed miss you are a baby my mother was no doubt unusually youthful in appearance even for her years she hung her head as if it were her fault poor thing � and said sobbing that indeed she was afraid she was but a childish widow and would be but a childish mother if she lived in a short pause which ensued she had a fancy that she felt miss touch her hair 