were words that Sampson seemed to believe.

"He does folks a good turn, as though he would a little rather do it
than not," said the widow Lovejoy, and no one had a better right to
know.

As for the poor, weak, nervous Rachel, who could only show her love for
her husband, by casting all the burden of her troubles, real and
imaginary, upon him, she could hardly love and trust him more than she
had always done, but he had a greater power of comforting her now, and
soon the peace that reigned in his heart influenced hers a little, and
as the years went on, she grew content, at last, to bear the burdens God
had laid upon her, and being made content to live and suffer on, God
took her burden from her and laid her to rest, where never burden
presses more.

If his mother had ever really believed that no part of her son's
happiness was made by his peevish, sickly wife, she must have
acknowledged her mistake when poor Rachel was borne away forever. She
must have known it by the long hours spent in her silent room, by the
lingering step with which he left it, by the tenderness lavished on
every trifle she had ever cared for.

"Sampson seemed kind o' lost," she said; and her motherly heart, with
all its worldliness, had a spot in it which ached for her son in his
desolation. She did not even begrudge his turning to Emily with a
tender love. She found it in her heart to rejoice that the girl had
power to comfort him as she could not. And little Emily, growing every
day more like the pretty Rachel who had taken captive poor Sampson's
youthful fancy, did what earnest love could do to comfort him.

But no selfishness mingled with her stepfather's love for Emily. It
cost him much to decide to send her from him for a while, but he did
decide to do so. For he could not but see that Emily's happiness was
little cared for by his mother, even yet. She could not now, as in the
old time, take refuge in her mother's room. She was helpful about the
house too, and could not often be spared to her friends up the hill, or
in the village; for old Mrs Snow, much as she hated to own it, could no
longer do all things with her own hands, as she used to do. To be sure,
she could have had help any day, or every day in the year; but it was
one of the old lady's "notions" not to be able "to endure folks around
her." And, besides, "what was the use of Emily Arnold?" And so, what
with one thing and another, little Emily's cheek began to grow