at no "hand's turn" should be
required of it beyond those set down in the bond,--resenting every
occurrence, however unavoidable, which changed or modified the day's
ordering,--there would speedily have come the old story of worry,
discontent, unreliance, disruption.

But Asenath's heart was with her little ones; she went back into her
own childhood with and for them, bringing out of it and living over
again all its bright, blessed little ways.

"She would be grown up again," she said, "by and by, when they
were."

She was keeping herself winsomely gay and fresh against the
time,--laying up treasure in the kingdom of all sweet harmonies
and divine intents, that need not be banished beyond the
grave,--although of that she never thought. It would come by
and by, for her reward.

She played with Sinsie in her baby-house; she did over again, with
her, in little, the things she was doing on not so very much larger
scale, for actual every day. She invented plays for Marmaduke which
kept the little man in him busy and satisfied. She collected,
eagerly, all treasures of small song and story and picture, to help
build the world of imagination into which all child-life must open
out.

As for Baby Karen, she was, for the most part, only manifest as one
of those little embodiments that are but given and grown out of such
loyal and happy motherhood. She was a real baby,--not a little
interloping animal. She was never nursed or tended in a hurry.
Babies blossom, as plants do, under the tender touch.

Kate Sencerbox, or Bel Bree, was glad to come into this nest-warm
pleasantness, when the mother must leave it for a while. It was not
an irksomeness flung by, like a tangled skein, for somebody else to
tug at and unravel; it was a joy in running order.

When the hard Monday came, or the baby had her little tribulations,
or it took a good tithe of the time to run and tell callers that
Mrs. Scherman was "very much engaged"--(why can't it be the fashion
to put those messages out upon the door-knob, or to tie it up
with--a silk duster, or a knot of tape?)--Kate or Bel would look one
at another and say, as they began with saying,--"Now, shut up!" It
was an understood thing that they were not to "fly out with
discouragements."

And nobody knows how many things would straighten themselves if that
could only be made the law of the land.

On Wednesday evenings, Mrs. Scherman always managed it that they
should both go to Desire Ledwi