"Lor, Mrs. Lee," continued the maid, spreading her flail-like arms in illustration, "I wish you could have seen that new widder-woman when them two gentlemen helped her on to the horse. Didn't her dress swell out--and didn't she keep Mr. Lawrence a-tinkering away at her stirrups, with one foot in his hand, till it made me sick looking on. Awful 'cute lady that is, Miss Hyde; you ain't no match for her, nohow!" I really think that witch of a girl was gifted with something almost like second sight. I never had a secret taste or dislike that she did not understand at once, and drag it out in some blundering way before the whole world. "What makes you think so, Lottie?" I inquired, a little annoyed. "Because you're straightforward right out, and flat-footed honest; and she--oh my!" "What makes you say, 'oh my!' Lottie?" "Nothing, Miss Hyde; only I've got eyes, and can see right through a mill-stone, especially when there's a hole in the middle. Perhaps you can't, then again perhaps you can; I don't dispute anything; only, as I said before, that widder-woman is too 'cute for such a mealy-mouthed lady as you are. My!--wouldn't she ride over you rough-shod and with spurs to her slippers!" We spoiled that girl. She was neither servant, companion, nor protégée, and yet partook of the position which three such persons might have occupied in the family. She waited upon every one with the faithfulness of a hound and the speed of a lapwing, seemed to be always in the kitchen, constantly flitting through the parlor, yet never beyond the sound of her mistress's voice. She belonged everywhere and nowhere in the household. She had taken her position out of the kitchen entirely, by refusing to sit down at the table there, whatever the temptation was, she invariably carrying off the tray into her own little room, after the mistress was served, taking her meals in solitary grandeur from frosted silver and china so delicate that you could see a shadow through it. Nay, she affected great elegance in this little room, which was a sort of select hospital for all the old finery in the household. Lace curtains, condemned as too much worn for the parlor-windows, after passing through her adroit hands, appeared at the casement of her little room transparent as new; silk hangings, when faded from their first splendor, she managed to revive into almost pristine brightness. She would cut out the freshest medallions from an old carpet, and make it bloom out anew under her own feet. Then she had pretty knick-knacks and keepsakes scattered about, which made her little nook quite a boudoir--indeed, almost the prettiest one in the family. Mrs. Lee was rather proud of her unique handmaiden's retreat; it gratified her own exquisite sense of the beautiful; and, as the room opened into her own, it was but a continuation of the refinements that surrounded her.