A Daughter of the Rich

by Mary E. Waller

"I 'll try to paragraph this letter in the right places so you 'll understand about the party.

"All the Lost Nation was invited; Captain and Mrs. Spillkins, Miss Melissa and Miss Elvira, Uncle Israel and Poor Reub, Mr. Lemuel Wood and his wife, and Aunt Tryphosa and Maria-Ann, and-- Oh, I forgot Miss Alton. She 's awfully sweet; she is Budd and Cherry's teacher in the district school at the Mill Settlement. She's more like a city person than the others. I wish you 'd been here! for I can't tell it half as nice as it was; but I 'll do my best because you wrote you wanted me to tell you everything.

"We were already for the party at eleven o'clock--in the morning, I mean--(I can't remember the sign for forenoon). We don't have any lunch up here, as you know, but the dinner comes between 12 and 1, so everything was ready then. I got up at five o'clock! and worked hard till it was time to change my gown.

"It was awfully cold. Chi said the thermometer was shivering when he looked at it just after breakfast; he means by that, it's below zero--a good deal; and I couldn't help thinking how cosy and warm and deliciously smelly it would be for the Lost Nation when they came in out of the cold into the long-room and saw the table (it looked beautiful, with baskets of red apples, and nuts and raisins, and a big centre-piece of red geranium) just loaded with goodies.

"March had driven over for Aunt Tryphosa and Maria-Ann, and they arrived first--Mrs. Blossom says they always do. (I want you to go over and call on them when you are up here Christmas; it's just like a story in Hans Andersen; they keep a cow, Dorcas, who wears a kimono on very cold nights.)

"March helped Aunt Tryphosa out just as if she had been Queen Victoria. (I forgot to tell you she and Maria-Ann do our laundry work.) March is perfectly splendid about such things--and Maria-Ann sort of bounced out, although Chi held out his hand to help her. It's so funny to see them together! Aunt Tryphosa is so small and wrinkled and thin that, sometimes, Chi says he has known a good wind to knock her right over; and Maria-Ann is almost as tall as Chi, and stout and rosy-cheeked, with nice brown eyes that talk to you.

"And, oh, papa!--I'll tell you, but it's a confidence--I saw Aunt Tryphosa shiver hard when she came into the house, and I 'm afraid she did not have enough warm things on. I know her shawl was n't very thick, for I went into the bedroom afterwards and felt of it; and she had no furs at all! Think of that with the thermometer way down below zero, papa! I 'll tell you all about it when you come.

"Well, after Mrs. Blossom had given the old lady a cup of hot tea, she felt better and began to talk; and, honestly, papa, she never stopped talking all day long! March said he timed her. She lives away over on the east side of the Mountain away from everybody, and yet she knows everything that is going on, on the Mountain, and at the Mill Settlement, and at Barton's River, and that, as you know, is quite a large place.

"She told us all about the new neighbors in the seven-gabled-house; how they had their dinner at bed-time, and what 'help' they have, and whom they are going to have for hired man, and how they have music every night after dinner, and how the lights were n't put out in the north-east chamber till one o'clock. She even knew the pattern of lace on the underclothes that were hung out to dry! and Maria-Ann was trying to crochet some in imitation; I saw it myself.

"And she said that one of the chambers was all lined with books, and another just covered, floor and walls, with pictures--what can she mean, papa? and that down stairs off the living-room in what used to be old Mrs. Morris's milk-room, there were ropes, and weights, and pulleys, and a stretcher, and iron balls, and that every one said it did n't have the right look. But she said she meant to stand up for them, because the young man had come over to call just two or three days ago and said, as she was his nearest neighbor, they ought to become acquainted before winter set in; and he ordered a half a dozen cheeses and brought word from his mother that she would like them to come over and see her daughter, for she thought Maria-Ann might be able to do something for her. Now, what do you suppose it all means?