guests seldom came empty handed—a couple of fresh eggs, or a roll of butter, or a cake of griddle- bread would be reserved for her at the bottom of the roomy creel. Other visitors were fain to carry off slips of the many trailing sprays, and would leave payment for them in silver coin, which sometimes had the comfortable portliness of half-crowns. But I do not believe that the little old woman valued these very highly, and I think most of them went in providing the strong black tea with which she loved to refresh her friends. And there was never an evening that she did not add to her Rosary: “And the Lord bless the kind heart of you then, Lady jewel, for sendin’ me the bit of company.”