If celestial visitants, these were certainly well disguised. Espey glanced at the bloated face of the inebriate husband of Jerusha, tremulous, full of sudden fits and starts; at Jerusha herself, slatternly, slothful, and down at the heel, a snuff brush in her mouth, and her forlorn discontent with life in general on her weak, flabby face; at the old, feeble-minded man dozing and muttering in the corner,--he had once in his life worked in the Lost Time mine, and he sometimes gave Espey a sudden start by bringing out the name with a deep, full, blood-curdling curse. Henrietta Timson's thankfulness had merged into a suspicion that too much gratitude was expected of her, and she was prone to magnify the lighter tasks which she selected, and went about with an overworked drudging air, and with some distinct proclivity for the rôle of martyr. It was a furtive, jealous eye which she cast upon Mrs. Larrabee, at home, competent, and emphatically in command. The children, nevertheless, were disposed to take undue advantage of their protectress; and the smaller they were, the more capable, by reason of her leniency, of imposing upon her. This disposition characterized even an infant turkey, which had contracted some disease by exposure to the inclemency of the weather, and, being put into a basket of cotton to recuperate, found its way out, from time to time, with a cotton girdle adhering about its middle, and, with a fifelike voice, made the grand tour of the hearth, in imminent danger of catching fire in its cotton gear, causing her acute anguish lest it should be baked alive and before its time.