out the cards, her eyes seriously scanning the faces of those already turned up. She was a large, placid lady, stout and ruddy. She must always, even in her earliest youth, have been plain, but her face was filled with an extraordinary kindness that made it infinitely pleasant. It was not the sort of kindness which can be simulated; it was something that was a natural part of her, and was reflected in all she did and said. It had moulded the expression of her countenance, just as time and weather will alter the features of a statue. Her eyes were small and gray, and she wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which, somehow, were becoming to her. I never saw her dressed in anything but black, and with a light lace cap on her gray hair. She was extremely fond of me, and I knew it, and I’m afraid imposed upon it, though I loved her sincerely. At that time it appeared to me perfectly natural that she should be fond of me; it was simply a part of the order of things; it had always been so, and I couldn’t have imagined anything else. It never even occurred to me that I had no claim upon her, except that which she herself had established; it never occurred to me that I might, in my relation to her, have been just like any of the other boys in the village. On the contrary, I looked upon Derryaghy quite as if it were a second, and certainly much my best-loved, home. The “patience” failed, and Mrs. Carroll swept up the cards. “Shall I read to you?” she asked me, and, I having graciously given my permission, she took up “Huckleberry Finn.” It was a book I rejoiced in, but I don’t think Mrs. Carroll cared for it, I don’t think she even found it funny. She spoke rather slowly, and it amused me infinitely to hear her gentle voice reproduce the talk of Huck, or Pap, or the King....