y know that you go up or down. Five large rooms on each floor give
ample room for the five heads of the house, if, indeed, there be not
six, as I said before.

Into this Saints' Rest, there have drifted together, by the eternal law
of attraction,--Huldah, and Ellen Philbrick (who was with her in
Virginia, and in France, and has been, indeed, but little separated from
her, except on duty, for twenty years), and with them three other
friends. These women,--well, I cannot introduce them to you without
writing three stories of true romance, one for each. This quiet, strong,
meditative, helpful saint, who is coming into the parlor now, is Helen
Touro. She was left alone with her baby when "The Empire State" went
down; and her husband was never heard of more. The love of that baby
warmed her to the love of all others; and, when I first knew her, she
was ruling over a home of babies, whose own mothers or fathers were
not,--always with a heart big enough to say there was room for one more
waif in that sanctuary. That older woman, who is writing at the
Davenport in the corner, lightened the cares and smoothed the daily
life of General Schuyler in all the last years of his life, when he was
in the Cabinet, in Brazil, and in Louisiana. His wife was long ill, and
then died. His children needed all a woman's care; and this woman
stepped to the front, cared for them, cared for all his household, cared
for him: and I dare not say how much is due to her of that which you and
I say daily we owe to him. Miss Peters, I see you know. She served in
another regiment; was at the head of the sweetest, noblest, purest
school that ever trained, in five and twenty years, five hundred girls
to be the queens in five hundred happy and strong families. All of these
five,--our Huldah and Mrs. Philbrick too, you have seen before,--all of
them have been in "the service;" all of them have known that perfect
service is perfect freedom. I think they know that perfect service is
the highest honor. They have together taken this house, as they say, for
the shelter and home of their old age. But Huldah, as she plays with
your Harry there, does not look to me as if she were superannuated yet.

"But you said there were six in all."

Did I? I suppose there are. "Mrs. Philbrick, are there five captains in
your establishment, or six?"

"My dear Mr. Hale, why do you ask me? You know there are five captains
and one general. We have persuaded Seth Corbet to make hi