Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/28

 he had never had a twinge of rheumatism in the sixty odd years of his life!

In the horse-chestnut tree was a bird-cote in the shape of a white-steepled "meeting-house." A fat little sparrow, perched on the door-sill of this minute edifice, was chirping sharply. Aunt Betsy watched his agitated little body, but did not hear him chirp. In the yard Eliza, the "girl," was vigorously pumping, causing a stream of water to gush noisily into the pail, and Aunt Betsy could see the neighbor's dog barking vociferously at a cat in a tree. But none of these sounds penetrated the heavy silence in which she was wrapped about. Only the beating of her pulse throbbed in her ears, and in a nervous tremor she delayed opening the package, much as a young girl might delay breaking the seal of a love-letter when once she had it in secure possession. So alike are sensations from totally different causes, and sensations of any kind being rare in Aunt Betsy's experience, she might well linger a little over this one.

But at last she had drawn one of the little cards from the package, and held it in her hand, and as the pleasant south wind fluttered her cap ribbons, and the afternoon sun shone kindly upon her, she looked shyly at her pictured countenance, and a sense of deep satisfaction transfused itself through her.

There was no mistaking the contour of her best cap; and as for the breastpin, she could almost