the sex, a more prim, prudent, particular member of it never existed.
She had been initiated, some ten years before, into that amiable
sisterhood commonly known as spinsters, and was, it might be added, a
typical representative. Industrious? You may well say so. Her floors,
stoves, dishes, linen,--- well, if they weren't clean, nowhere on earth
might you find clean ones. She hated dirt as she did original sin, and
I've no doubt but that in her own mind considered its existence in the
world as the one certain, damning and conclusive evidence of the Fall.
It was really an entertainment to see her looking about the house for a
speck of dirt; and the cold-blooded manner in which she would seize upon
it, bear it away in the dust pan, and, removing the lid of the stove,
consign it to the flames, was--well,--what should I say,--yes, that's
it--was most edifying.

Amiable! Yes,--after her way. And a very noiseless sort of way it was,
too. For, though she had lived with the deacon for nearly a dozen
years, he had never known her to so far forget her propriety as to
indulge in anything more hearty and hilarious than the most decorous of
smiles, which smile was such a kind of illumination to her face as a
star of inconceivably small magnitude makes to the sky in trailing
across it.

[Illustration: "_Miranda belonged to that sisterhood commonly known as
spinsters._"]

Of her personal appearance I will say--nothing. Sacred let it be to
memory! If you ever saw her, or one like her, whether full front or
profile, whether sideways or edgewise, the vision, I am ready to swear,
remains with you vividly still. Let it suffice, then, when I observe
that Miss Miranda was not physically stout, and that the deacon's