The person ushered into the sitting-room was not wholly a stranger to the family, and indeed by reputation they knew her well. She was an aunt of Bathalina Clemens, and rejoiced in the somewhat remarkable cognomen of Thomas Jefferson Gooch. Her grandfather being in his prime an ardent partisan of that famous statesman, had made a rash vow that his first grandchild should bear Jefferson's name. The first-born grandchild proved to be a girl, but the determined old gentleman, was no more to be restrained from the fulfilment of his vow than was Jephtha. Thomas Jefferson was the infant christened, and as "Aunty Jeff" she was now known to the whole neighborhood. She was a perfect "roly-poly-pudding" of a woman, "her husband's sphere," Will Sanford called her; but her activity was greater than that of her gauntest neighbor, and she walked as briskly as if she'd an electric battery in her back hair to keep her in motion. The corpulent little woman managed herself and her relatives with a determination which there was no evading. She dressed always in rusty black, and went about slipshod, explaining that she was too fat to reach her feet and lace up boots. To-day, having been to the funeral of the long death-defying Emma, her attire was more striking than usual; her black bonnet being garnished with the largest of red roses, and a magenta bow lighting up the voluminous amplitude of her chins, which, like spice-boxes, came in assorted sizes. "Good-evenin', Mis' Sanford," Aunty Jeff burst out, plunging porpoise-like at once into the room and the midst of her errand. "That ungrateful Bathaliny Clemens hain't come home, has she? No, of course she hain't; an' I knew it, the miserable hussy! She's been elopin' with that all-fired Peter Mixon." "Eloping!" her listeners cried in chorus. "Yes, elopin'. I knew there was some kind of a gum-game up when I seed her an' him comin' in together. The hussy brought him right into the room with the mourners, and he looked at the remains as familiar and easy-like as if he'd been one of the next relations. I tried to catch Bathaliny's eye, but she wouldn't look at me. They couldn't walk to the grave together, 'cause he wasn't called with the mourners. But when we got there, and Parson Jones was a-prayin', I peeked through my fingers, and I seed Peter was a-sneakin' round toward her,--the dispisable, miser'ble wretch! An' when we was a-singin' the last hymn--we sung, 'Why do ye mourn, departed friends?'