"Sit still! The child's strange yet; I can do up the chores for once, I suppose," answered aunt Hannah, placing a bright tin pan on the dresser, and tightening a snow-white strainer over the pail. "Sit down, I say." Uncle Nathan dropped into his capacious chair, with a relieving sigh, though half the authority in aunt Hannah's command was lost in the flow of a pearly torrent of milk which soon filled the pan. "Can't I help?" inquired Mary, going up to aunt Hannah, as she lifted the brimming pan with both hands, and bore it toward a swinging shelf in the pantry. "Not now; when you are rested. Go back to Nathan," answered aunt Hannah, looking sideway over the uplifted milk pan. Mary drew back to her place by the old man, and they watched the sun as it set redly behind the hills, covering the garden and all the hills with its dusky gold. "See!" said uncle Nathan, pointing to an immense sun flower crowning a stalk at least eight feet high. "See how that great flower wheels round as the sun travels toward the mountains; and stands with its face to the west, when it goes down. Did you ever see that before?" "The great, brown flower, fringed with yellow leaves--does it really do that?" cried Mary, with her bright eyes wandering from the stately flower to uncle Nathan's face. "Oh! how I should love to sit and watch it all day!" "I do sometimes, Sundays, when it's too warm for anything else," said uncle Nathan; "but supposing you go to bed early, and get up in the morning, as sure as you do, that sunflower will be found looking straight to the east." Aunt Hannah, who had bustled about the porch and pantry some time, appeared after a short interval, at the back door. Uncle Nathan understood the signal, and taking Mary by the hand, led her into a kitchen, neatly covered with a rag carpet, and furnished with old-fashioned wooden chairs. A little round tea-table stood in the middle of the room, covered with warm tea-biscuit, preserved plums in china saucers, and plates of molasses-pound-cake, with a saucer of golden butter, and one of cheese, placed at equal distances. Aunt Hannah took her seat behind an oblong tray of dark japaned tin, on which stood a conical little pewter tea-pot, bright as silver, and a pile of tea-spoons small enough for a modern play-house, but so bright that they scattered cheerful gleams over the whole tray. Three chairs stood around the table, and in one of these Mary placed herself, obedient to a move of aunt Hannah's hand. A bowl of bread and milk stood by her plate, to which she betook herself with hearty relish, while aunt Hannah performed the honors of her pewter tea-pot, mingling a judicious quantity of water with Mary's portion of her favorite beverage, while uncle Nathan reached over and sweetened it with prodigality, observing that "it was the nature of children to love sweets," at which aunt Hannah gave a cold smile of assent.