s home
here,--yes, the same who went round the world with Mrs. Cradock. Since
her death, he has come home to Boston; and he reports to us, and makes
his head-quarters here. He sees that we are all right every morning; and
then he goes his rounds to see every grandchild of old Mr. Cradock, and
to make sure that every son and daughter of that house is 'all right.'
Sometimes he is away over night. This is when somebody in the whole
circle of all their friends is more sick than usual, and needs a man
nurse. That old man was employed by old Mr. Cradock, in 1816, when he
first went to housekeeping. He has had all the sons and all the
daughters of that house in his arms; and now that the youngest of them
is five and twenty, and the oldest fifty, I suppose he is not satisfied
any day until he has seen that they and theirs, in their respective
homes, are well. He thinks we here are babies; but he takes care of us
all the more courteously."

"Will he dine with you to-day?"

"I am afraid not; but we shall see him at the Christmas-tree after
dinner. There is to be a tree."

You see, this house was dedicated to the Apotheosis of Noble Ministry.
Over the mantel-piece hung Raphael Morghen's large print of "The
Lavatio," Caracci's picture of "The Washing of the Feet,"--the only copy
I ever saw. We asked Huldah about it.

"Oh, that was a present from Mr. Burchstadt, a rich manufacturer in
Wuertemberg, to Ellen. She stumbled into one of those villages when
everybody was sick and dying of typhus, and tended and watched and
saved, one whole summer long, as Mrs. Ware did at Osmotherly. And this
Mr. Burchstadt wanted to do something, and he sent her this in
acknowledgment."

On the other side was Kaulbach's own study of Elizabeth of Hungary,
dropping her apron full of roses.

"Oh! what a sight the apron discloses;
The viands are changed to real roses!"

When I asked Huldah where that came from, she blushed, and said, "Oh,
that was a present to me!" and led us to Steinler's exquisite "Good
Shepherd," in a larger and finer print than I had ever seen. Six or
eight gentlemen in New York, who, when they were dirty babies from the
gutter, had been in Helen Touro's hands, had sent her a portfolio of
beautiful prints, each with this same idea, of seeking what was lost.
This one she had chosen for the sitting-room.

And, on the fourth side, was that dashing group of Horace Vernet's,
"Gideon crossing Jordan," with the motto wrought