A STRANGE VISITOR.





IT was about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, Mrs. Crump was in the
kitchen, busy in preparations for dinner, when a loud knock was
heard at the door.

"Who can it be?" ejaculated Mrs. Crump. "Aunt Rachel, there's
somebody at the door; won't you be kind enough to see who it is?"

"People have no business to call at such an hour in the morning,"
grumbled Aunt Rachel, as she laid down her knitting reluctantly, and
rose from her seat. "Nobody seems to have any consideration for
anybody else. But that's the way of the world."

Opening the outer door, she saw before her a tall woman, dressed in
a gown of some dark stuff, with marked, and not altogether pleasant
features.

"Are you the lady of the house?" inquired the visitor.

"There ain't any ladies in this house," said Rachel. "You've come to
the wrong place. We have to work for a living here."

"The woman of the house, then. It doesn't make any difference about
names. Are you the one I want to see?"