It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning:Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet beensummoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warmgarden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she wasfond: and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper andhoarding up the money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic,and a marked propensity for saving; shown not only in the vending ofeggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardenerabout flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionaryhaving orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young lady all the productsof her parterre she wished to sell: and Eliza would have sold the hairoff her head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby. As toher money, she first secreted it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag oran old curl-paper; but some of these hoards having been discoveredby the housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her valuedtreasure, consented to