practically minded woman."

"What do men require!"

"They require the souls and bodies of women, without having the
trouble of knowing the difference between the one and other."

"So bad as that? Whoa!"

He stopped to pay toll, and the conversation stopped.

On the way home, however, I found a place to begin my proposed talk,
and burst out with, "I think Hepsey should leave us."

"What ails Hepsey?"

"She is so old, and is such a poke."

"You must tell her yourself to go. She has money enough to be
comfortable; I have some of it, as well as that of half the widows,
old maids, and sailors' wives in Surrey,' being better than the
Milford banks, they think."

I felt another cold twinge.

"What! are our servants your creditors?"

"Servants--don't say that," he said harshly; "we do not have these
distinctions here."

"It costs you more than two thousand a year."

"How do you know?"

"Think of the hired people--the horses, the cows, pigs, hens, garden,
fields--all costing more than they yield."

"What has come over you? Did you ever think of money before? Tell me,
have you ever been in our cellar?"

"Yes, to look at the kittens."

"In the store-room?"

"For apples and sweetmeats."

"Look into these matters, if you like; they never troubled your
mother, at least I never knew that they did; but don't make your
reforms tiresome."

What encouragement!

In the yard we saw Fanny contemplating a brood of hens, which were
picking up corn before her. "Take Fanny for a coadjutor; she is
eighteen, and a bright girl." She sprang to the chaise, and caught the
reins, which he threw into her hands, unbuckled the girth, and, before
I was out of sight, was leading the horse to water.

"We might economize in the way of a stable-boy," I said.

"Pooh! you are not indulgent. Here," whistling to Fanny, "let Sam do
that." She pouted her lips at him, and he laughed.

Aunt Merce gave me a letter the moment I entered. "It is in Alice's
hand; sit down and read it."

She took her handkerchief and a bit of flagroot from her pocket, to be
ready for the sympathetic flow which she expected. But the letter was
short. She had seen, it said, the announcement of mother's death in a
newspaper at the time. She knew what a change it had made. We might
be sure that we should never find our old level, however happy and
forgetful we might grow. She bore us all in mind but sent no message,
except to Aunt Merce; she must come to Rosvi