I found Miss Plank wuz a good-appearin' woman, and a Christian, I
believe, with good principles, and a hair mole on her face, though she
kep 'em curbed down, and cut off (the hairs).

[Illustration: A good-appearin' woman.]

Her husband had been a man of wealth, as you could see plain by the
house that he left her a-livin' in. But some of her property she had
lost through poor investments--and don't it beat all how wimmen do git
cheated, and every single man she deals with a-tellin' her to confide in
him freely, for he hain't but one idee, and that is to look out for her
interests, to the utter neglect of his own, and a-warnin' her aginst
every other man on earth but himself.

But, to resoom. She had lost some of her property, and bein' without
children, and kind o' lonesome, and a born housekeeper and cook, her
idee of takin' in a few respectable and agreeable boarders wuz a good
one.

She wuz a good calculator, and the best maker of pancakes I ever see,
fur or near. She oversees her own kitchen, and puts on her own hand and
cooks, jest when she is a mind too. She hain't afraid of the face of man
or woman, though she told me, and I believe it, that "her cook wuz that
cross and fiery of temper, that she would skair any common person almost
into coniption fits."

"But," sez she, "the first teacup that she throwed at me, because I
wanted to make some pancakes, wuz the last."