aby in her arms, and take him with her to
the office, for it was long past dinner-time. So she pared the mutton
carefully, although by so doing she reduced the meat to an infinitesimal
quantity, and taking the baked potatoes out of the oven, she popped them
piping hot into her basket with the et-caeteras of plate, butter, salt,
and knife and fork.

It was, indeed, a bitter wind. She bent against it as she ran, and the
flakes of snow were sharp and cutting as ice. Baby cried all the way,
though she cuddled him up in her shawl. Then her husband had made his
appetite up for a potato pie, and (literary man as he was) his body got
so much the better of his mind, that he looked rather black at the cold
mutton. Mary had no appetite for her own dinner when she arrived at
home again. So, after she had tried to feed baby, and he had fretfully
refused to take his bread and milk, she laid him down as usual on his
quilt, surrounded by playthings, while she sided away, and chopped
suet for the next day's pudding. Early in the afternoon a parcel came,
done up first in brown paper, then in such a white, grass-bleached,
sweet-smelling towel, and a note from her dear, dear mother; in which
quaint writing she endeavoured to tell her daughter that she was not
forgotten at Christmas time; but that learning that Farmer Burton was
killing his pig, she had made interest for some of his famous pork, out
of which she had manufactured some sausages, and flavoured them just as
Mary used to like when she lived at home.

"Dear, dear mother!" said Mary to herself. "There never was any one like
her for remembering other folk. What rare sausages she used to make!
Home things have a smack with 'em, no bought things can ever have. Set
them up with their sausages! I've a notion if Mrs. Jenkins had ever
tasted mother's she'd have no fancy for them town-made things Fanny took
in just now."

And so she went on thinking about home, till the smiles and the dimples
came out again at the remembrance of that pretty cottage, which would
look green even now in the depth of winter, with its pyracanthus, and
its holly-bushes, and the great Portugal laurel that was her mother's
pride. And the back path through the orchard to Farmer Burton's; how
well she remembered it. The bushels of unripe apples she had picked up
there, and distributed among his pigs, till he had scolded her for
giving them so much green trash.

She was interrupted--her baby (I call him a baby,