Elizabeth Ann's Great-aunt Harriet was a widow who was not very rich or
very poor, and she had one daughter, Frances, who gave piano lessons to
little girls. They kept a "girl" whose name was Grace and who had asthma
dreadfully and wasn't very much of a "girl" at all, being nearer fifty
than forty. Aunt Harriet, who was very tender-hearted, kept her chiefly
because she couldn't get any other place on account of her coughing so
you could hear her all over the house.
So now you know the names of all the household. And this is how they
looked: Aunt Harriet was very small and thin and old, Grace was very
small and thin and middle-aged, Aunt Frances (for Elizabeth Ann called
her "Aunt," although she was really, of course, a first-cousin-once-
removed) was small and thin and if the light wasn't too strong might be
called young, and Elizabeth Ann was very small and thin and little. And
yet they all had plenty to eat. I wonder what was the matter with them?
It was certainly not because they were not good, for no womenkind in all
the world had kinder hearts than they. You have heard how Aunt Harriet
kept Grace (in spite of the fact that she was a very depressing person)
on account of her asthma; and when Elizabeth Ann's father and mother
both died when she was a baby, although there were many other cousins
and uncles and aunts in the family, these two women fairly rushed upon
the little baby-orphan, taking her home and surrounding her henceforth
with the most loving devotion.
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