98 SHEPHERDSTOWN, ON THE POTOMAC. 



them. I really don't mean you Cousin Helen, you can't help being 

 a Yankee, and you are not like one, but that is what they think and 

 say all the time. I wish they would leave us alone, and never think 

 or speak of us. We could say enough about them — how mean and 

 stingy they are ; economical, they call it — and "shameful waste"'' they 

 call it, if we give a stranger a decent meal. For my part, I don't be- 

 lieve they ever have enough to eat. Don't you remember that old 

 saying of poor Pa's ? that a Southerner never sells anything he can 

 eat and a Northerner never eats anything that he can sell. 



"That's a mere saying though, Ellen," said I, "I never, in my life, 

 saw eggs and butter, or anything of that kind, in fact, sold by a gentle- 

 man's family, until I came here; and you know Aunt Helen sells them 

 to Perkins, whenever she has anything to spare, and no one thinks 

 any the worse of her for it. As for our talking about what you do, 

 or how you live down here, I have told you already that we don't 

 do it. I don't remember ever hearing anything at all, on the subject; 

 whereas, it seems to me, you talk of nothing else, and it is not at all 

 amusing, and I am tired of it." 



My cousins were invariably kind and affectionate to me, and, except 

 upon this subject, Ellen would have been snubbed long ago, and told to 

 hold her tongue, but about these things it seemed impossible for them 

 to be just, or to look at them through anything but the distorting- 

 glasses through which they had looked at them all their lives. They 

 were too much amused to see my distress and anger, and kind though 

 they were, they would not disagree with what Ellen said; which, 

 after all, at their age, was hardly to be expected; though kind Mar- 

 garet put her arm around my waist and Harry said, rather shortly: 

 "Let's* change the subject ; we've had enough of this." TVe had had 

 enough of it, and too much, for though the weather suddenty changed 

 for the better, and the sun showed himself at setting, we were but a 

 quiet party going home. 



We were, of course, very late for a six o'clock supper, but one of 

 Aunt Helen's kindest and most delightful traits, which indeed she 

 shared with all the housekeepers I ever met with down there, was 

 never to spoil one's dinner or supper by being disagreeable and sulky 

 when one came in late. She rather pitied us for being tired and 

 hungry and having to wait longer till something a little better than 

 usual was tossed up for us in the kitchen than herself for merely 



