opened one eye. For it occurred dimly to Elizabeth Ann that this was a
rather funny way of saying that Northern Spies were very hard when you
first pick them in the autumn. She had to figure it out for herself very
slowly, because it was a new idea to her, and she was halfway through
her tour of inspection of the house before there glimmered on her lips,
in a faint smile, the first recognition of humor in all her life. She
felt a momentary impulse to call down to Cousin Ann that she saw the
point, but before she had taken a single step toward the head of the
stairs she had decided not to do this. Cousin Ann, with her bright, dark
eyes, and her straight back, and her long arms, and her way of speaking
as though it never occurred to her that you wouldn't do just as she
said--Elizabeth Ann was not very sure that she liked Cousin Ann, and she
was very sure that she was afraid of her.

So she went on, walking from one room to another, industriously eating
the red apple, the biggest she had ever seen. It was the best, too, with
its crisp, white flesh and the delicious, sour-sweet juice which made
Elizabeth Ann feel with each mouthful like hurrying to take another. She
did not think much more of the other rooms in the house than she had of
the kitchen. There were no draped "throws" over anything; there were no
lace curtains at the windows, just dotted Swiss like the kitchen; all
the ceilings were very low; the furniture was all of dark wood and very
old-looking; what few rugs there were were of bright-colored rags; the
mirrors were queer and old, with funny old pictures at the top; there
wasn't a brass bed in any of the bedrooms, just old wooden ones with
posts, and curtains round the tops; and there was not a single plush
portiere in the parlor, whereas at Aunt Harriet's there had been two
sets for that one room.

She was relieved at the absence of a piano and secretly rejoiced that