EWING; OR, HOW TO ENCOURAGE THE POOR
JESSIE HAMPTON
THE NEW YEAR'S GIFT
AUNT MARY'S PRESERVING KETTLE
HOME AT LAST
GOING HOME

WOMAN'S TRIALS.

A LESSON OF PATIENCE.

I WAS very unhappy, from a variety of causes, definable and
undefinable. My chambermaid had been cross for a week, and, by talking
to my cook, had made her dissatisfied with her place. The mother of
five little children, I felt that I had a weight of care and
responsibility greater than I could support. I was unequal to the task.
My spirits fell under its bare contemplation. Then I had been
disappointed in a seamstress, and my children were, as the saying is,
"in rags." While brooding over these and other disheartening
circumstances, Netty, my chambermaid, opened the door of the room where
I was sitting, (it was Monday morning,) and said--

"Harriet has just sent word that she is sick, and can't come to-day."

"Then you and Agnes will have to do the washing," I replied, in a
fretful voice; this new source of trouble completely breaking me down.

"Indeed, ma'am," replied Netty, tossing her head and speaking with some
pertness, "_I_ can't do the washing. I didn't engage for any thing but
chamber-work."

And so saying she left me to my own reflections. I must own to feeling
exceedingly angry, and rose to ring the bell for Netty to return, in
order to tell her that she could go to washing or leave the house, as
best suited her fancy. But the sudden recollection of a somewhat
similar collision with a former chambermaid, in which I was worsted,
and compelled to do my own chamber-work for a week, caused me to
hesitate, and, finally, to sit down and indulge in a hearty fit of
crying.

When my husband came home at dinnertime, things did not seem very
pleasant for him, I must own. I had on a long, a very long face--much
longer than it was when he went away in the morning.

"Still in trouble, I see, Jane," said he. "I wish you would try and
take things a little more cheerfully. To be unhappy about what is not
exactly agreeable doesn't help the matter any, but really makes it
worse."

"If you had to contend with what I have to contend with, you wouldn't
talk about things being _exactly agreeable,_" I replied to this. "It is
easy enough to talk. I only wish you had a little of my trouble; you
wouldn't think so lightly of it."

"What is the great trouble now, Jane?" said my husband, without being
at all fretted with my unamiable