What a queer girl she was, and what a fascinating influence she unconsciously exerted over us! We never tired of her presence; but she, deprived of ours by the many household tasks that she herself assumed, so rigidly maintained and deftly executed, seemed always just as happy when alone as when in our boisterous, fun-loving company. Such resources had Mary Alice Smith--such a wonderful inventive fancy! She could talk to herself--a favorite amusement, I might almost say a popular amusement, of hers, since these monologues at times would involve numberless characters, chipping in from manifold quarters of a wholesale discussion, and querying and exaggerating, agreeing and controverting, till the dishes she was washing would clash and clang excitedly in the general badinage. Loaded with a pyramid of glistening cups and saucers, she would improvise a gallant line of march from the kitchen table to the pantry, heading an imaginary procession, and whistling a fife-tune that would stir your blood. Then she would trippingly return, rippling her rosy fingers up and down the keys of an imaginary portable piano, or stammering flat-soled across the floor, chuffing and tooting like a locomotive. And she would gravely propound to herself the most intricate riddles--ponder thoughtfully and in silence over them--hazard the most ridiculous answers, and laugh derisively at her own affected ignorance. She would guess again and again, and assume the most gleeful surprise upon at last giving the proper answer, and then she would laugh jubilantly, and mockingly scout herself with having given out "a fool-riddle" that she could guess "with both eyes shut." "Talk about riddles," she said abruptly to us, one evening after supper, as we lingered watching her clearing away the table--"talk about riddles, it--takes--David--Mason--Jeffries--to--tell--riddles! Bet you don't know 'Riddle-cum, riddle-cum right! Where was I last Saturd'y night? The winds blow--the boughs did shake-- I saw the hole a fox did make!' " Again we felt that indefinable thrill never separate from the strange utterance, suggestive always of some dark mystery, and fascinating and holding the childish fancy in complete control. "Bet you don't know this-'un neether: 'A holler-hearted father, And a hump-back mother-- Three black orphants All born together!' " We were dumb.