tumn melted into a clear, sharp, silvered
winter, carrying Sharley with them, round on her old routine. It never
grew any the easier or softer. The girl's little rebellious feet trod it
bitterly. She hated the darning and the sweeping and the baking and the
dusting. She hated the sound of the baby's worried cry. She was tired of
her mother's illnesses, tired of Moppet's mischief, tired of
Methuselah's solemnity. She used to come in sometimes from her walk to
the office, on a cold, moonlight evening, and stand looking in at them
all through the "keeping-room" window,--her father prosing over the
state of the flour-market, her mother on the lounge, the children
waiting for her to put them to bed; Methuselah poring over his
arithmetic in his little-old-mannish way; Moppet tying the baby and the
kitten together,--stand looking till the hot, shamed blood shot to her
forehead, for thought of how she was wearied of the sight.

"I can't think what's got into Sharley," complained her mother; "she has
been as cross as a bear this good while. If she were eight years old,
instead of eighteen, I should give her a good whipping and send her to
bed!"

Poor Sharley nursed her trouble and her crossness together, in her
aggrieved, girlish way, till the light went out of her wistful eyes, and
little sharp bones began to show at her wrists. She used to turn them
about and pity them. They were once so round and winsome!

Now it was probably a fact that, as for the matter of hard work,
Sharley's life was a sinecure compared to what it would be as the wife
of Halcombe Dike. Double your toil into itself, and triple it by the
measure of responsibility, and there you have your married life, young
girls,--beautiful, dim Eden that you have made of it! But there was
never an Eden without its serpent, I fancy. Besides, Sharley, like the
rest of them, had not thought as far as that.

Then--ah then, what toil would not be play-day for the sake of Halcombe
Dike? what weariness and wear could be too great, what pain too keen, if
they could bear it together?

O, you mothers! do you not see that this makes "a' the difference"? You
have strength that your daughter knows not of. There are hands to help
you over the thorns (if not, there ought to be). She gropes and cuts her
way alone. Be very patient with her in her little moods and
selfishnesses. No matter if she might help you more about the baby: be
patient. Her position in your home is at best an a