ption, and she
broke off her engagement, but remained unmarried for the rest of her
life. "Careful and troubled about many things" was poor Aunt Bessie, and
I remember being rather shocked one day at hearing her express her
sympathy with Martha, when her sister left her to serve alone, and at her
saying: "I doubt very much whether Jesus would have liked it if Martha
had been lying about on the floor as well as Mary, and there had been no
supper. But there! it's always those who do the work who are scolded,
because they have not time to be as sweet and nice as those who do
nothing." Nor could she ever approve of the treatment of the laborers in
the parable, when those who "had borne the burden and heat of the day"
received but the same wage as those that had worked but one hour. "It was
not just", she would say doggedly. A sad life was hers, for she repelled
all sympathy, and yet later I had reason to believe that she half broke
her heart because none loved her well. She was ever gloomy,
unsympathising, carping, but she worked herself to death for those whose
love she chillily repulsed. She worked till, denying herself every
comfort, she literally dropped. One morning, when she got out of bed, she
fell, and crawling into bed again, quietly said she could do no more; lay
there for some months, suffering horribly with unvarying patience; and
died, rejoicing that at last she would have "rest".

Two other "Aunties" were my playfellows, and I their pet. Minnie, a
brilliant pianiste, earned a precarious livelihood by teaching music. The
long fasts, the facing of all weathers, the weary rides in omnibuses with
soaked feet, broke down at last a splendid constitution, and after some
three years of torture, commencing with a sharp attack of English
cholera, she died the year before my marriage. But during my girlhood she
was the gayest and merriest of my friends, her natural buoyancy
re-asserting itself whenever she could escape from her musical
tread-mill. Great was my delight when she joined my mother and myself for
our spring or summer trips, and when at my favorite St. Leonards--at the
far unfashionable end, right away from the gay watering-place folk--we
settled down for four or five happy weeks of sea and country, and when
Minnie and I scampered over the country on horseback, merry as children
set free from school. My other favorite auntie was of a quieter type, a
soft pretty loving little woman. "Co" we called her, for she w