"I don't know which way to turn to get the fall tailorin' done, now Mirandy Daggett's been and had money left to her," said, in an aggrieved tone, the buxom mistress of the Wei by poor-farm, as she briskly hung festoons of pumpkins, garners of the yellowest of the summer sunshine, along the beams of the great wood-shed chamber. "The widow Pingree, from over Sharon way, she's so wasteful, I declare it makes my blood run cold to see her cuttin' and slashin' into good cloth; and Emerline Johnson she's so scantin', the menfolks all looks like scarecrows, with their legs and arms a-stickin' out. _Mirandy's_ got faculty." "Seems if 'twa'n't no more'n yesterday that I was carryin' victuals to keep that child from starvin', and now she's an heiress, and here I be. Well, the Lord's ways ain't ourn." A little old woman, twisted all awry by a paralytic shock, who was feebly assisting the poor-mistress, uttered these reflections in a high-keyed, quavering voice. She was called old lady Peaseley, and a halo of aristocracy encircled her, although she had been in the poor-house thirty years, for her grandfather had been the first minister of Welby. "I declare, if there ain't Mirandy a-comin' up the lane this blessed minute! Talk about angels, you know. Seems if she looked kinder peaked and meachin', though most gen'ally as pert's a lizard. If things was as they used to be, I should jest sing out to her to come right up here; but, bein' she's such an heiress, I s'pose I'd better go down and open the front door." But before the brisk poor-mistress could reach the front door her visitor had entered, the kitchen. "I've been kind of low-spirited, and, thinks I, if there is a place where I could get chippered up it's down to the poor-house, where it's always so lively and sociable; and if Mis' Bemis ain't a-goin' to send for me I'll jest go over and find out the reason why." The speaker, who had seated herself in a rocking-chair, took off her rough straw hat and fanned herself with it energetically, rocking meanwhile. She was about midway in the thirties, plain and almost coarse of feature, but with a suggestion of tenderness about her large mouth that softened her whole face. She had, too, a vigor and freshness which were attractive like the bloom of youth. "I was jest sayin' to old lady Peaseley that I didn't know how I was a-goin' to get along without you; but I wouldn't 'a' thought of askin' you to come, bein' you're so rich now." "Be I a-goin' to lay by and twiddle my thumbs and listen to folks advisin' of me jest because I ain't obliged to work? I'm all beat out now doin' nothin'. Since I've bought the old place--gran'ther's farm, you know--I don't seem to be much better off. I can't go to farmin' it this fall; and what can a lone woman do on a farm anyhow?" "Farmin' is kind of poor business for a woman; but I do hope, Mirandy, you ain't a-goin' to marry that poor, pigeon-breasted, peddlin' cretur that's hangin' round here."