'Lena Rivers. Mary Jane Holmes

would as soon marry her grandfather."

      With Mrs. Livingstone the reader is partially acquainted. In her youth she had been pretty, and now at thirty-eight she was not without pretensions to beauty, notwithstanding her sallow complexion and sunken eyes, Her hair, which was very abundant, was bright and glossy, and her mouth, in which the dentist had done his best, would have been handsome, had it not been for a certain draw at the corners, which gave it a scornful and rather disagreeable expression. In her disposition she was overbearing and tyrannical, fond of ruling, and deeming her husband a monster of ingratitude if ever in any way he manifested a spirit of rebellion. Didn't she marry him? and now they were married, didn't her money support him? And wasn't it exceedingly amiable in her always to speak of their children as ours! But as for the rest, 'twas my house, my servants, my carriage, and my horses. All mine—"Mrs. John Livingstone's—Miss Matilda Richards that was!"

      Occasionally, however, her husband's spirit was roused, and then, after a series of tears, sick-headaches, and then spasms, "Miss Matilda Richards that Was" was compelled to yield her face for many days wearing the look of a much-injured, heart-broken woman. Still her influence over him was great, else she had never so effectually weakened every tie which bound him to his native home, making him ashamed of his parents and of everything pertaining to them. When her husband first wrote, to her that his father was dead and that he had promised to take charge of his mother and 'Lena, she new into a violent rage, which was increased ten-fold when she received his second letter, wherein he announced his intention of bringing them home in spite of her. Bursting into tears she declared "she'd leave the house before she'd have it filled up with a lot of paupers. Who did John Nichols think he was, and who did he think she was! Besides that, where was he going to put them? for there wasn't a place for them that she knew of!"

      "Why, mother," said Anna who was pleased with the prospect of a new grandmother and cousin, "Why, mother, what a story. There's the two big chambers and bedrooms, besides the one next to Carrie's and mine. Oh, do put them in there. It'll be so nice to have grandma and cousin 'Lena so near me."

      "Anna Livingstone!" returned the indignant lady, "Never let me hear you say grandma and cousin again."

      "But they be grandma and cousin," persisted Anna, while her mother commenced lamenting the circumstance which had made them so, wishing, as she had often done before, that she had never married John Nichols.

      "I reckon you are not the only one that wishes so," slyly whispered

       John Jr., who was a witness to her emotion.

      Anna was naturally of an inquiring mind, and her mother's last remark awoke within her a new and strange train of thought, causing her to wonder whose little girl she would have been, her father's or mother's, in case they had each married some one else! As there was no one whose opinion Anna dared to ask, the question is undoubtedly to this day, with her, unsolved.

      The next morning when Mrs. Livingstone arose, her anger of the day before was somewhat abated, and knowing from past experience that it was useless to resist her husband when once he was determined, she wisely concluded that as they were now probably on the road, it was best to try to endure, for a time, at least, what could not well be helped. And now arose the perplexing question, "What should she do with them? where should she put them that they would be the most out of the way? for she could never suffer them to be round when she had company." The chamber of which Anna had spoken was out of the question, for it was too nice, and besides that, it was reserved for the children of her New Orleans friends, who nearly every summer came up to visit her.

      At the rear of the building was a long, low room, containing a fireplace and two windows, which looked out upon the negro quarters and the hemp fields beyond. This room, which in the summer was used for storing feather-beds, blankets, and so forth, was plastered, but minus either paper or paint. Still it was quite comfortable, "better than they were accustomed to at home," Mrs. Livingstone said, and this she decided to give them. Accordingly the negroes were set at work scrubbing the floor, washing the windows, and scouring the sills, until the room at least possessed the virtue of being clean. A faded carpet, discarded as good for nothing, and over which the rats had long held their nightly revels, was brought to light, shaken, mended, and nailed down—then came a bedstead, which Mrs. Livingstone had designed as a Christmas gift to one of the negroes, but which of course would do well enough for her mother-in-law. Next followed an old wooden rocking-chair, whose ancestry Anna had tried in vain to trace, and which Carrie had often proposed burning. This, with two or three more chairs of a later date, a small wardrobe, and a square table, completed the furniture of the room, if we except the plain muslin curtains which shaded the windows, destitute of blinds. Taking it by itself, the room looked tolerably well, but when compared with the richly furnished apartments around it, it seemed meager and poor indeed; "but if they wanted anything better, they could get it themselves. They were welcome to make any alterations they chose."

      This mode of reasoning hardly satisfied Anna, and unknown to her mother she took from her own chamber a handsome hearth-rug, and carrying it to her grandmother's room, laid it before the fireplace. Coming accidentally upon a roll of green paper, she, with the help of Corinda, a black girl, made some shades for the windows, which faced the west, rendering the room intolerably hot during the summer season. Then, at the suggestion of Corinda, she looped back the muslin curtains with some green ribbons, which she had intended using for her "dolly's dress." The bare appearance of the table troubled her, but by rummaging, she brought to light a cast-off spread, which, though soiled and worn, was on one side quite handsome.

      "Now, if we only had something for the mantel," said she; "it seems so empty."

      Corinda thought a moment, then rolling up the whites of her eyes, replied, "Don't you mind them little pitchers" (meaning vases) "which Master Atherton done gin you? They'd look mighty fine up thar, full of sprigs and posies."

      Without hesitating a moment Anna brought the vases, and as she did not know the exact time when her grandmother would arrive, she determined to fill them with fresh flowers every morning.

      "There, it looks a heap better, don't it, Carrie?" said she to her sister, who chanced to be passing the door and looked in.

      "You must be smart," answered Carrie, "taking so much pains just for them; and as I live, if you haven't got those elegant vases that Captain Atherton gave you for a birthday present! I know mother won't like it. I mean to tell her;" and away she ran with the important news.

      "There, I told you so," said she, quickly returning. "She says you carry them straight back and let the room alone."

      Anna began to cry, saying "the vases were hers, and she should think she might do what she pleased with them."

      "What did you go and blab for, you great for shame, you?" exclaimed

       John Jr., suddenly appearing in the doorway, at the same time giving

       Carrie a push, which set her to crying, and brought Mrs. Livingstone to

       the scene of action,

      "Can't my vases stay in here? Nobody'll hurt 'em, and they'll look so pretty," said Anna.

      "Can't that hateful John behave, and let me alone?" said Carrie.

      "And can't Carrie quit sticking her nose in other folks' business?" chimed in John Jr.

      "Oh Lordy, what a fuss," said Corinda, while poor Mrs. Livingstone, half distracted, took refuge under one of her dreadful headaches, and telling her children "to fight their own battles and let her alone," returned to her room.

      "A body'd s'pose marster's kin warn't of no kind of count," said Aunt Milly, the head cook, to a group of sables, who, in the kitchen, were discussing the furniture of the "trump'ry room," as they were in the habit of calling the chamber set apart for Mrs. Nichols. "Yes, they would s'pose they warn't of no kind o' count, the way miss goes on, ravin' and tarin' and puttin' 'em off with low-lived truck that we black folks wouldn't begin to tache with the tongs. Massy knows ef my ole mother warn't dead and gone to kingdom come, I should never think o' sarvin' her so, and I don't set myself up to be nothin' but an old nigger, and a black one at that. But Lor' that's the