hat they wouldn't miss of hearing
mother's chair for anything in the world. For why? for twenty years
or more, nothing but loving words, and gentle moralities, and motherly
loving kindness, had come from that chair;--head-aches and heart-aches
innumerable had been cured there,--difficulties spiritual and temporal
solved there,--all by one good, loving woman, God bless her!

"And so thee still thinks of going to Canada, Eliza?" she said, as she
was quietly looking over her peaches.

"Yes, ma'am," said Eliza, firmly. "I must go onward. I dare not stop."

"And what'll thee do, when thee gets there? Thee must think about that,
my daughter."

"My daughter" came naturally from the lips of Rachel Halliday; for hers
was just the face and form that made "mother" seem the most natural word
in the world.

Eliza's hands trembled, and some tears fell on her fine work; but she
answered, firmly,

"I shall do--anything I can find. I hope I can find something."

"Thee knows thee can stay here, as long as thee pleases," said Rachel.

"O, thank you," said Eliza, "but"--she pointed to Harry--"I can't sleep
nights; I can't rest. Last night I dreamed I saw that man coming into
the yard," she said, shuddering.

"Poor child!" said Rachel, wiping her eyes; "but thee mustn't feel so.
The Lord hath ordered it so that never hath a fugitive been stolen from
our village. I trust thine will not be the first."

The door here opened, and a little short, round, pin-cushiony woman
stood at the door, with a cheery, blooming face, like a ripe apple. She
was dressed, like Rachel, in sober gray, with the muslin folded neatly
across her round, plump little chest.

"Ruth Stedman," said Rachel, coming joyfully forward; "how is thee,
Ruth? she said, heartily taking both her hands.

"Nicely," said Ruth, taking off her little drab bonnet, and dusting it
with her handkerchief, displaying, as she did so, a round little head,
on which the Quaker cap sat with a sort of jaunty air, despite all the
stroking and patting of the small fat hands, which were busily applied
to arranging it. Certain stray locks of decidedly curly hair, too, had
escaped here and there, and had to be coaxed and cajoled into
their place again; and then the new comer, who might have been
five-and-twenty, turned from the small looking-glass, before which she
had been making these arrangements, and looked well pleased,--as most
people who looked at her might have been,--for she was dec