amp in one
hand and a year-old baby clinging to the other. She was a big
shapeless woman with a round good-natured face--cheerful and vulgar as
a sunflower was Aunt Jane at all times and occasions.

"I want to run over and see how Mrs. Brixby is this evening, Siddy,
and you must take care of the baby till I get back."

Sidney sighed and went downstairs for the baby. It never would have
occurred to her to protest or be petulant about it. She had all her
aunt's sweetness of disposition, if she resembled her in nothing else.
She had not grumbled because she had to rise at four that morning, get
breakfast, milk the cows, bake bread, prepare seven children for
school, get dinner, preserve twenty quarts of strawberries, get tea,
and milk the cows again. All her days were alike as far as hard work
and dullness went, but she accepted them cheerfully and
uncomplainingly. But she did resent having to look after the baby when
she wanted to write her letter.

She carried the baby to her room, spread a quilt on the floor for him
to sit on, and gave him a box of empty spools to play with.
Fortunately he was a phlegmatic infant, fond of staying in one place,
and not given to roaming about in search of adventures; but Sidney
knew she would have to keep an eye on him, and it would be distracting
to literary effort.

She got out her box of paper and sat down by the little table at the
window with a small kerosene lamp at her elbow. The room was small--a
mere box above the kitchen which Sidney shared with two small cousins.
Her bed and the cot where the little girls slept filled up almost all
the available space. The furniture was poor, but everything was
neat--it was the only neat room in the house, indeed, for tidiness was
no besetting virtue of Aunt Jane's.

Opposite Sidney was a small muslined and befrilled toilet-table, above
which hung an eight-by-six-inch mirror, in which Sidney saw herself
reflected as she devoutly hoped other people did not see her. Just at
that particular angle one eye appeared to be as large as an orange,
while the other was the size of a pea, and the mouth zigzagged from
ear to ear. Sidney hated that mirror as virulently as she could hate
anything. It seemed to her to typify all that was unlovely in her
life. The mirror of existence into which her fresh young soul had
looked for twenty years gave back to her wistful gaze just such
distortions of fair hopes and ideals.

Half of the little table by which