he haymaking.

In the courtyard I saw a little cart, with iron brakes underneath it,
such as fastidious people use to deaden the jolting of the road; but few
men under a lord or baronet would be so particular. Therefore I wondered
who our noble visitor could be. But when I entered the kitchen-place,
brushing up my hair for somebody, behold it was no one greater than our
Annie, with my godson in her arms, and looking pale and tear-begone.
And at first she could not speak to me. But presently having sat down a
little, and received much praise for her baby, she smiled and blushed,
and found her tongue as if she had never gone from us.

"How natural it all looks again! Oh, I love this old kitchen so! Baby
dear, only look at it wid him pitty, pitty eyes, and him tongue out of
his mousy! But who put the flour-riddle up there. And look at the pestle
and mortar, and rust I declare in the patty pans! And a book, positively
a dirty book, where the clean skewers ought to hang! Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie,
Lizzie!"

"You may just as well cease lamenting," I said, "for you can't alter
Lizzie's nature, and you will only make mother uncomfortable, and
perhaps have a quarrel with Lizzie, who is proud as Punch of her
housekeeping."

"She," cried Annie, with all the contempt that could be compressed in a
syllable. "Well, John, no doubt you are right about it. I will try not
to notice things. But it is a hard thing, after all my care, to see
everything going to ruin. But what can be expected of a girl who knows
all the kings of Carthage?"

"There were no kings of Carthage, Annie. They were called, why let me
see--they were called--oh, something else."

"Never mind what they were called," said Annie; "will they cook our
dinner for us? But now, John, I am in such trouble. All this talk is
make-believe."

"Don't you cry, my dear: don't cry, my darling sister," I answered,
as she dropped into the worn place of the settle, and bent above her
infant, rocking as if both their hearts were one: "don't you know,
Annie, I cannot tell, but I know, or at least I mean, I have heard the
men of experience say, it is so bad for the baby."

"Perhaps I know that as well as you do, John," said Annie, looking up at
me with a gleam of her old laughing: "but how can I help crying; I am in
such trouble."

"Tell me what it is, my dear. Any grief of yours will vex me greatly;
but I will try to bear it."

"Then, John, it is just this. Tom has gone off with the