er husband, so there was no use of
trying that. She put a little table beside the window and a white cloth
on it, and then brought a saucer of crimson strawberries and yellow
cream; but the lady was no eater, she was sorry to see. She stood a
moment timidly, but Miss Defourchet did not put her at her ease. It was
the hungry poor she cared for, with stifled brains and souring feeling.
This woman was at ease, stupidly at peace with God and herself.

"Perhaps thee'd be amused to look over Joseph's case of books?" handing
her the key, and then sitting down with her knitting, contented in
having finished her duty. "After a while thee'll have a pleasant
time,"--smiling consciously. "Richard'll be awake. Richard's our boy,
thee knows? I wish he was awake, but it is his mornin' nap, an' I never
disturb him in his mornin' nap."

"You lead a very quiet life, apparently," said Miss Defourchet; for she
meant to see what was in all these dull trifles.

"Yes, thee might call it so. My old man farms; he has more skill that
way than me. He bought land in Iowa, an' has been out seein' it, an'
that freshened him up this spring. But we'll never leave the old place."

"So he farms, and you"--

"Well, I oversee the house," glancing at the word into the kitchen to
see how Bessy was getting on with the state dinner in progress. "It
keeps me busy, an' Bessy, (she's an orphan we've taken to raise,) an'
the dairy, an' Richard most of all. I let nobody touch Richard but
myself. That's my work."

"You have little time for reading?"

Jane colored.

"I'm not fond of it. A book always put me to sleep quicker than a hop
pillow. But lately I read some things," hesitating,--"the first books
Richard'll have to know. I want to keep him with ourselves as long as I
can. I'd like,"--her eyes with a new outlook in them, as she raised
them, something beyond Miss Defourchet's experience,--"I'd like to make
my boy a good, healthy, honest boy before _I_'m done with him. I wish I
could teach him his Latin an' th' others. But there's no use to try for
that."

"How goes it, Mary?" said the Doctor heartily, coming in, all in a heat,
and sun-burnt, with Starke.

Both men were past the prime of life, thin, and stooped, but Starke's
frame was tough and weather-cured. He was good for ten years longer in
the world than Dr. Bowdler.

"I've just been looking at the stock. Full and plenty, in every corner,
as I say to Joseph. It warms me up to come here, Starke