Miss Catherine then directed my attention to the antique round table, and assured me that at this very table Dr. Franklin had drank tea on his last visit to Boston. Miss Mary then produced, from a closet by the chimney-side, an ancient machine of timber and iron in the form of a bellows, which she informed me was two hundred years old. It looked as if it might have been two thousand, and must have been constructed in the very infancy of bellows-making, about the time when people first began to grow tired of blowing their fires with their mouths. It would have afforded a strange contrast, and a striking illustration of the march of intellect, if placed by the side of one of those light and beautiful, painted, gilt and varnished fire-improvers which abound in certain shops in Washington street. This bellows of other days was so heavy that it seemed to require a strong man to work it. The handles and sides were carved all over with remarkably cumbrous devices; and the nozzle or spout was about the size and shape of a very large parsnep with the point cut off. Miss Mary now asked her sister if _she_ had no curiosities to show the ladies? Miss Catherine modestly replied that she feared she had nothing the ladies would care to look at. Miss Mary assured us that sister Catherine had a box of extraordinary things, such as were not to be seen every day, and that they were universally considered as very great curiosities. Miss Catherine still seemed meekly inclined to undervalue them. My companion, who _had_ seen the things repeatedly, begged that their Philadelphia visiter might be indulged with a view of these rarities—and, finally, after a little more coquetry, a sort of square band-box was produced, and Miss Catherine did the honors of her little museum.