be found. Most grateful was I to him for this permission, and delighted to see a small apartment in the attic overflowing with calicos, plaids, and a multitude of other articles adapted to home consumption.
Forthwith I opened negotiations with the flax merchants, and busied myself in searching the suburbs for those who were skilled to transmute the raw material into yarn, thread, etc., receiving remuneration in what ever they might select from my store, at marvellously reduced prices. Here was a commercial intercourse, and a barter-trade opened, without any manner of doubt. The traffic proved a source of mutual satisfaction.
It was principally among the old-fashioned people whom I dealt, the younger not having been initiated into the policies of spindle and distaff. At length, discovering a female weaver, I had my purchased yarn transmuted into various forms of what the Scotch call napery, of a serviceable and durable quality. A correlative species of industry, which I had not anticipated, sprang up from this pleasant traffic. My own maidens, who were moved with a desire of imitating, or surpassing what was exhibited by their suburban friends, betook themselves, at their intervals of leisure, to the same employment, and the music of the large spinning-wheel was extant among us. This was interesting both to Mr. Sigourney and myself, as conforming still more to those habits of rural life which we respected. We procured wool for them, which, after
