e, "and dear knows she has her hands full;
it's quite a chore to look after all them children."

The women maintained a charitable silence. The ethics of their day did
not recognize any womanly duty inconsistent with matrimony. "A
disappointment" was considered the only dignified reason for remaining
single. Grandmother Elliott felt the weakness of her position.

"I'm sure I don't see how her father would get on," she protested
feebly; "he ain't much of a hand to manage."

"If Marg'et Ann was to marry, her father would have to stir round and
get himself a wife," said Mrs. Barnes, with cheerful lack of sentiment,
confident that her audience was with her.

"I've always had a notion Marg'et Ann thought a good deal more of Lloyd
Archer than she let on,--at least more than her folks knew anything
about," asserted Mrs. Skinner, stretching her plump arm under the quilt
and feeling about carefully. "I shouldn't wonder if she'd had quite a
disappointment."

"I would have hated to see her marry Lloyd Archer," protested
grandmother Elliott; "she's a sight too good for him; he's always had
queer notions."

"Well, I should 'a' thought myself she could 'a' done better," admitted
Mrs. Barnes, "but somehow she hasn't. I tell 'Lisha it's more of a
disgrace to the young man than it is to her."

Evidently this discussion of poor Marg'et Ann's dismal outlook
matrimonially was not without precedent.

One person was totally oblivious to the facts and all surmises
concerning them. Theoretically, no doubt, the good minister esteemed it
a reproach that any woman should remain unmarried; but there are
theories which refinement finds it easy to separate from daily life, and
no thought of Marg'et Ann's future intruded upon her father's deep and
daily increasing distress over the wrongs of human slavery. Marg'et Ann
was conscious sometimes of a change in him; he went often and
restlessly to see Squire Kirkendall, who kept an underground railroad
station, and not infrequently a runaway negro was harbored at the
Morrisons'. Strange to say, these frightened and stealthy visitors,
dirty and repulsive though they were, excited no fear in the minds of
the children, to whom the slave had become almost an object of
reverence.

Marg'et Ann read her first novel that year,--a story called "Uncle Tom's
Cabin," which appeared in the "National Era,"--read it and wept over it,
adding all the intensity of her antislavery training to the enjoyment of
a