any thing for which John thanked his sister, it was when she went
over and spent hours with his wife, patiently listening to her
complainings, and soothing her as if she had been a petted child. All
the circle of friends, in a like manner, bore with her for his sake.

Thanks to the intervention of Grace's husband and of Harry, John was
not put to the trial and humiliation of being obliged to sell the
family place, although constrained to live in it under a system of
more rigid economy. Lillie's mother, although quite a commonplace
woman as a companion, had been an economist in her day; she had known
how to make the most of straitened circumstances, and, being put to
it, could do it again.

To be sure, there was an end of Newport gayeties; for Lillie vowed and
declared that she would not go to Newport and take cheap board, and
live without a carriage. She didn't want the Follingsbees and the
Tompkinses and the Simpkinses talking about her, and saying that they
had failed. Her mother worked like a servant for her in smartening her
up, and tidying her old dresses, of which one would think that she had
a stock to last for many years. And thus, with everybody sympathizing
with her, and everybody helping her, Lillie subsided into enacting the
part of a patient, persecuted saint. She was touchingly resigned, and
wore an air of pleasing melancholy. John had asked her pardon for all
the hasty words he said to her in the terrible interview; and she had
forgiven him with edifying meekness. "Of course," she remarked to her
mother, "she knew he would be sorry for the way he had spoken to her;
and she was very glad that he had the grace to confess it."

So life went on and on with John. He never forgot his sister's words,
but received them into his heart as a message from his mother in
heaven. From that time, no one could have judged by any word, look, or
action of his that his wife was not what she had always been to him.

Meanwhile Rose was happily married, and settled down in the Ferguson
place; where her husband and she formed one family with her parents.
It was a pleasant, cosey, social, friendly neighborhood. After all,
John found that his cross was not so very heavy to carry, when once he
had made up his mind that it must be borne. By never expecting much,
he was never disappointed. Having made up his mind that he was to
serve and to give without receiving, he did it, and began to find
pleasure in it. By and by, the little