Since I wrote that I have been trying to tell God all about it. But I could not speak for crying. And I have been getting the rooms ready. How many little things I had planned to put in the best one, which I intended for mother I have made myself arrange them just the same for Ernest's father. The stuffed chair I have had in my room, and enjoyed so much, has been rolled in, and the Bible with large print placed on the little table near which I had pictured mother with her sweet, pale face, as sitting year after year. The only thing I have taken away is the copy of father's portrait. He won't want that!

When I had finished this business I went and shook my fist at the creature I saw in the glass.

"You're beaten I" I cried. "You didn't want to give up the chair, nor your writing-table, nor the Bible in which you expect to record the names of your ten children I But you've had to do it, so there!"

MARCH 3.-They all got here at 7 o'clock last night, just in time for tea. I was so glad to get hold of Ernest once more that I was gracious to my guests, too. The very first thing, however, Ernest annoyed me by calling me Katherine, though he knows I hate that name, and want to be called Katy as if I were a lovable person, as I certainly am (sometimes). Of course his father and Martha called me Katherine, too.

His father is even taller, darker, blacker eyed, blacker haired than he.

Martha is a spinster.

I had got up a nice little supper for them, thinking they would need something substantial after their journey. And perhaps there was some vanity in the display of dainties that needed the mortification I felt at seeing my guests both push away their plates in apparent disgust. Ernest, too, looked annoyed, and expressed some regret that they could find nothing to tempt their appetites.

Martha said something about not expecting much from young housekeepers, which I inwardly resented, for the light, delicious bread had been sent by Aunty, together with other luxuries from her own table, and I knew they were not the handiwork of a young housekeeper, but of old Chloe, who had lived in her own and her mother's family twenty years.

Ernest went out as soon as this unlucky repast was over to hear Dr. Embury's report of his patients, and we passed a dreary evening, as my mind was preoccupied with longing for his return. The more I tried to think. of something to say the more I couldn't.

At last Martha asked at what time we breakfasted.

"At half-past seven, precisely," I answered. "Ernest is very punctual about breakfast. The other meals are more irregular."

"That is very late," she returned. "Father rises early and needs his breakfast at once."

I said I would see that he had it as early as he liked, while I foresaw that this would cost me a battle with the divinity who reigned in the kitchen.

"You need not trouble yourself. I will speak to my brother about it," she said.

"Ernest has nothing to do with it," I said, quickly.

She looked at me in a speechless way, and then there was a long silence, during which she shook her head a number of times. At last she inquired: "Did you make the bread we had on the table to-night?"

"No, I do not know how to make bread," I said, smiling at her look of horror.

"Not know how to make bread?" she cried. The very spirit of mischief got into me, and made me ask:

"Why, can you?"

Now I know there is but one other question I could have asked her, less insulting than this, and that is:

"Do you know the Ten Commandments?"

A spinster fresh from a farm not know how make bread, to be sure!

But in a moment I was ashamed and sorry that I had yielded to myself so far as to forget the courtesy due to her as my guest, and one just home from a scene of sorrow, so I rushed across the room, seized her hand, and said, eagerly:

"Do forgive me! It slipped out before I thought!"

She looked at me in blank amazement, unconscious that there was anything to forgive.

'How you startled me!" she said. "I thought you had suddenly gone crazy."

I went back to my seat crestfallen enough. All this time Ernest's father had sat grim and grave in his corner, without a word. But now he spoke.

"At what hour does my son have family worship? I should like to retire. I feel very weary."

Now family worship at night consists in our kneeling down together hand in hand, the last thing before going to bed, and in our own room. The awful thought of changing this sweet, informal habit into a formal one made me reply quickly:

"Oh, Ernest is very irregular about it. He is often out in the evening, and sometimes we are quite late. I hope you never will feel obliged to wait for him."

I trust I shall do my duty, whatever it costs," was the answer.

Oh, how I wished they would go to bed!

It was now ten o'clock, and I felt tired and restless. When Ernest is out late I usually lie on the sofa and wait for him, and so am bright and fresh when he comes in. But now I had to sit up, and there was no knowing for how long. I poked at the fire and knocked down the shovel and tongs, now I leaned back in my chair, and now I leaned forward, and then I listened for his step. At last he came.

"What, are you not all gone to bed?" he asked.

As if I could go to bed when I had scarcely seen him a moment since his return!

I explained why we waited, and then we had prayer and escorted our guests to their rooms. When we got back to the parlor I was thankful to rest my tired soul in Ernest's arms, and to hear what little he had to tell about his mother's last hours.

"You must love me more than ever, now," he said, "for I have lost my best friend."

"Yes," I said, "I will." As if that were possible! All the time we were talking I heard the greatest racket overhead, but he did not seem to notice it. I found, this morning, that Martha, or her father, or both together, had changed the positions of article of furniture in the room making it look a fright.



Chapter 11

XI.

MARCH 10.

THINGS are even worse than I expected. Ernest evidently looked at me with his father's eyes (and this father has got the jaundice, or something), and certainly is cooler towards me than he was before he went home. Martha still declines eating more than enough to keep body and soul together, and sits at the table with the air of a martyr. Her father lives on crackers and stewed prunes, and when he has eaten them, fixes his melancholy eyes on me, watching every mouthful with an air of plaintive regret that I will consume so much unwholesome food.

Then Ernest positively spends less time with me than ever, and sits in his office reading and writing nearly every evening.

Yesterday I came home from an exhilarating walk, and a charming call at Aunty's, and at the dinner-table gave a lively account of some of the children's exploits. Nobody laughed, and nobody made any response, and after dinner Ernest took me aside, and said, kindly enough, but still said it,

"My little wife must be careful how she runs on in my father's presence. He has a great deal of every thing that might be thought levity."

Then all the vials of my wrath exploded and went off.

"Yes, I see how it is," I cried, passionately. "You and your father and your sister have got a box about a foot square that you want to squeeze me into. I have seen it ever since they came. And I can tell you it will take more than three of you to do it. There was no harm in what I said-none, whatever. If you only married me for the sake of screwing me down and freezing me up, why didn't you tell me so before it was too late?"

Ernest stood looking at me like one staring at a problem he had got to solve, and didn't know where to begin.

"I am very sorry," he said. "I thought you would be glad to have me give you this little hint. Of course I want you to appear your very best before my father and sister."

"My very best is my real self," I cried. "To talk like a woman of forty is unnatural to a girl of my age. If your father doesn't like me I wish he would go away, and not come here putting notions into your head, and making you as cold and hard as a stone. Mother liked to have me 'run on,' as you call it, and I wish I had stayed with her all my life."

"Do you mean," he asked, very gravely," that you really wish that?"

"No," I said, "I don't mean it," for his husky, troubled voice brought me to my senses. "All I mean is, that I love you so dearly, and you keep my heart feeling so hungry and restless; and then you went and brought your father and sister here and never asked me if I should like it; and you crowded mother out, and she lives all alone, and it isn't right! I always said that whoever married me had got to marry mother, and I never dreamed that you would disappoint me so!"

"Will you stop crying, and listen to me?" he said.

But I could not stop. The floods of the great deep were broken up at last, and I had to cry. If I could have told my troubles to some one I could thus have found vent for them, but there was no one to whom I had a right to speak of my husband.

Ernest walked up and down in silence. Oh, if I could have cried on his breast, and felt that he loved and pitied me!

At last, as I grew quieter, he came and sat by me.

"This has come upon me like a thunderclap," he said. "I did not know I kept your heart hungry. I did not know you wished your mother to live with us. And I took it for granted that my wife, with her high-toned, heroic character, would sustain me in every duty, and welcome my father and sister to our home. I do not know what I can do now. Shall I send them away?"

No, no!" I cried. "Only be good to me, Ernest, only love me, only look at me with your own eyes, and not with other people's. You knew I had faults when you married me; I never tried to conceal them."

And did you fancy I had none myself?" he asked.

"No," I replied. "I saw no faults in you. Everybody said you were such a noble, good man and you spoke so beautifully one night at an evening meeting."

"Speaking beautifully is little to the purpose less one lives beautifully," he said, sadly. "And now is it possible that you and I, a Christian man and a Christian woman, are going on and on with scenes as this? Are you to wear your very life out because I have not your frantic way of loving, and am I to be made weary of mine because I cannot satisfy you?"

"But, Ernest," I said, "you used to satisfy me. Oh, how happy I was in those first days when we were always together; and you seemed so fond me!" I was down on the floor by this time, and looking up into his pale, anxious face.

"Dear child," he said, "I do love you, and that more than you know. But you would not have me leave my work and spend my whole time telling you so?"

"You know I am not so silly," I cried.. "It is not fair, it is not right to talk as if I were. I ask for nothing unreasonable. I only want those little daily assurances of your affection which I should suppose would be spontaneous if you felt at all towards me as I do to you."

"The fact is," he returned, "I am absorbed in my work. It brings many grave cares and anxieties. I spend most of my time amid scenes of suffering and at dying beds. This makes me seem abstracted and cold, but it does not make you less dear. On the contrary, the sense it gives me of the brevity and sorrowfulness of life makes you doubly precious, since it constantly reminds me that sick beds and dying beds must sooner or later come to our home as to those of others."

I clung to him as he uttered these terrible words In an agony of terror.

"Oh, Ernest, promise me, promise me that you will not die first," I pleaded.

Foolish little thing!" he said, and was as silly, for a while, as the silliest heart could ask. Then he became serious again.

"Katy," he said, "if you can once make up your mind to the fact that I am an undemonstrative man, not all fire and fury and ecstasy as you are, yet loving you with all my heart, however it may seem, I think you will spare yourself much needless pain—and spare me, also."

"But I want, you to be demonstrative," I persisted.

"Then you must teach me. And about my father and sister, perhaps, we may find some way of relieving you by and by. Meanwhile, try to bear with the trouble they make, for my sake."

"But I don't mind the trouble! Oh, Ernest, how you do misunderstand me! What I mind is their coming between you and me and making you love me less."

"By this time there was a call for Ernest-it is a wonder there had not been forty-and he went.

"I feel as heart-sore as ever. What has been gained by this tempest ? Nothing at all! Poor Ernest! How can I worry him so when he is already full of care?

MARCH 20.-I have had such a truly beautiful letter to-day from dear mother! She gives up the hope of coming to spend her last years with us with a sweet patience that makes me cry whenever I think of it. What is the secret of this instant and cheerful consent to whatever God wills! Oh, that I had it, too! She begs me to be considerate and kind to Ernest's father and sister, and constantly to remind myself that my Heavenly Father has chosen to give me this care and trial on the very threshold of my married life. I am afraid I have quite lost sight of that in my indignation with Ernest for bringing them here.

APRIL 3.-Martha is closeted with Ernest in his office day and night. They never give me the least hint of what is going on in these secret meetings. Then this morning Sarah, my good, faithful cook, bounced into my room to give warning. She said she could not live where there were, two mistresses giving contrary directions.

"But, really, there is but one mistress," I urged. Then it came out that Martha went down every morning to look after the soap-fat, and to scrimp in the house-keeping, and see that there was no food wasted. I remembered then that she had inquired whether I attended to these details, evidently ranking such duties with saying one's prayers and reading one's Bible.

I flew to Ernest the moment he was at leisure and poured my grievances into his ear.

"Well, dear," he said, "suppose you give up the house-keeping to Martha! She will be far happier and you will be freed from much annoying, petty care."

I bit my tongue lest it should say something, and went back to Sarah.

"Suppose Miss Elliott takes charge of the housekeeping, and I have nothing to do with it, will you stay?"

"Indeed, and I won't then. I can't bear her, and I won't put up with her nasty, scrimping, pinching ways!"

"Very well. Then you will have to go," I said, with great dignity, though just ready to cry. Ernest, on being applied to for wages, undertook to argue the question himself.

"My sister will take the whole charge," he began.

"And may and welcome for all me!" quoth Sarah. "I don't like her and never shall."

"Your liking or disliking her is of no consequence whatever," said Ernest. "You may dislike her as much as you please. But you must not leave us."

"Indeed, and I'm not going to stay and be put upon by her," persisted Sarah. So she has gone. We had to get dinner ourselves; that is to say, Martha did, for she said I got in her way, and put her out with my awkwardness. I have been running hither and thither to find some angel who will consent to live in this ill-assorted household. Oh, how different everything is from what I had planned! I wanted a cheerful home, where I should be the centre of every joy; a home like Aunty's, without a cloud. But Ernest's father sits, the personification of silent gloom, like a nightmare on my spirits; Martha holds me in disfavor and contempt; Ernest is absorbed in his profession, and I hardly see him. If he wants advice he asks it of Martha, while I sit, humbled, degraded and ashamed, wondering why he ever married me at all. And then come interludes of wild joy when he appears just as he did in the happy days of our bridal trip, and I forget every grievance and hang on his words and looks like one intoxicated with bliss.

OCT. 2.-There has been another explosion. I held in as long as I could, and then flew into ten thousand pieces. Ernest had got into the habit of helping his father and sister at the table, and apparently forgetting me. It seems a little thing, but it chafed and fretted my already irritated soul till at last I was almost beside myself.

Yesterday they all three sat eating their breakfast and I, with empty plate, sat boiling over and, looking on, when Ernest brought things to a crisis by saying to Martha,

"If you can find time to-day I wish you would go out with me for half an hour or so. I want to consult you about-"

"Oh!" I said, rising, with my face all in a flame, do not trouble yourself to go out in order to escape me. I can leave the room and you can have your secrets to yourselves as you do your breakfast!"

I don't know which struck me, most, Ernest's appalled, grieved look or the glance exchanged between Martha and her father.

He did not hinder my leaving the room, and I went upstairs, as pitiable an object as could be seen. I heard him go to his office, then take his hat and set forth on his rounds. What wretched hours I passed, thus left alone! One moment I reproached myself, the next I was indignant at the long series of offences that had led to this disgraceful scene.

At last Ernest came.

He looked concerned, and a little pale.

"Oh, Ernest!" I cried, running to him, "I am so sorry I spoke to you as I did! But, indeed, I cannot stand the way things are going on; I am wearing all out. Everybody speaks of my growing thin. Feel of my hands. They burn like fire."

"I knew you would be sorry, dear," he said. "Yes, your hands are hot, poor child."

There was a long, dreadful silence. And yet I was speaking, and perhaps he was. I was begging and beseeching God not to let us drift apart, not to let us lose one jot or tittle of our love to each other, to enable me to understand my dear, dear husband and make him understand me.

Then Ernest began.

"What was it vexed you, dear? What is it you can't stand? Tell me. I am your husband, I love you, I want to make you happy."

"Why, you are having so many secrets that you keep from me; and you treat me as if I were only a child, consulting Martha about everything. And of late you seem to have forgotten that I am at the table and never help me to anything!"

"Secrets!" he re-echoed. "What possible secrets can I have?"

"I don't know," I said, sinking wearily back on the sofa. "Indeed, Ernest, I don't want to be selfish or exacting, but I am very unhappy."

"Yes, I see it, poor child. And if I have neglected you at the table I do not wonder you are out of patience. I know how it has happened. While you were pouring out the coffee I busied myself in caring for my father and Martha, and so forgot you. I do not give this as an excuse, but as a reason. I have really no excuse, and am ashamed of myself."

"Don't say that, darling," I cried, "it is I who ought to be ashamed for making such an ado about a trifle."

"It is not a trifle," he said; "and now to the other points. I dare say I have been careless about consulting Martha. But she has always been a sort of oracle in our family, and we all look up to her, and she is so much older than you. Then as to the secrets. Martha comes to my office to help me look over my books. I have been careless about my accounts, and she has kindly undertaken to attend to them for me."

"Could not I have done that?"

"No; why should your little head be troubled about money matters? But to go on. I see that it was thoughtless in me not to tell you what we were about. But I am greatly perplexed and harassed in many ways. Perhaps you would feel better to know all about it. I have only kept it from you to spare you all the anxiety I could."

"Oh, Ernest," I said, "ought not a wife to share in all her husband's cares?"

"'No," he returned; "but I will tell you all that is annoying me now. My father was in business in our native town, and went on prosperously for many years. Then the tide turned-he met with loss after loss, till nothing remained but the old homestead, and on that there was a mortgage. We concealed the state of things from my mother; her health was delicate, and we never let her know a trouble we could spare her. Now she has gone, and we have found it necessary to sell our old home and to divide and scatter the family My father's mental distress when he found others suffering from his own losses threw him into the state in which you see him now. I have therefore assumed his debts, and with God's help hope in time to pay them to the uttermost farthing. It will be necessary for us to live economically until this is done. There are two pressing cases that I am trying to meet at once. This has given me a preoccupied air, I have no doubt, and made you suspect and misunderstand me. But now you know the whole, my darling."

I felt my injustice and childish folly very keenly, and told him so.

"But I think, dear Ernest," I added, "if you will not be hurt at my saying so, that you have led me to it by not letting me share at once in your cares. If you had at the outset just told me the whole story, you would have enlisted my sympathies in your father's behalf, and in your own. I should have seen the reasonableness of your breaking up the old home and bringing him here, and it would have taken the edge of my bitter, bitter disappointment about my mother."

"I feel very sorry about that," he said. "It would be a real pleasure to have her here. But as things are now, she could not be happy with us."

"There is no room," I put in.

"I am truly sorry. And now my dear little wife must have patience with her stupid blundering old husband, and we'll start together once more fair and square. Don't wait, next time, till you are so full that you boil over; the moment I annoy you by my inconsiderate ways, come right and tell me."

I called myself all the horrid names I could think of.

"May I ask one thing more, now we are upon the subject?" I said at last. "Why couldn't your sister Helen have come here instead of Martha?"

He smiled a little.

"In the first place, Helen would be perfectly if she had the care of father in his present She is too young to have such responsibility. In the second place, my brother John, with whom she has gone to live, has a wife who would be quite crushed by my father and Martha. She is one of those little tender, soft souls one could crush fingers. Now, you are not of that sort; you have force of character enough to enable you to live with them, while maintaining your own dignity and remaining yourself in spite of circum stances."

"I thought you admired Martha above all thing and wanted me to be exactly like her."

"I do admire her, but I do not want you to be like anybody but yourself."

"But you nearly killed me by suggesting that I should take heed how I talked in your father's presence."

"Yes, dear; it was very stupid of me, but my father has a standard of excellence in his mind by which he tests every woman; this standard is my mother. She had none of your life and fun in her, and perhaps would not have appreciated your droll way of putting things any better than he and Martha do."

I could not help sighing a little when I thought what sort of people were watching my every word.

"There is nothing amiss to my mind," Ernest continued, "in your gay talk; but my father has his own views as to what constitutes a religious character and cannot understand that real earnestness and real, genuine mirthfulness are consistent with each other."

He had to go now, and we parted as if for a week's separation, this one talk had brought us so near to each other. I understand him now as I never have done, and feel that he has given me as real a proof of his affection by unlocking the door of his heart and letting me see its cares, as I give him in my wild pranks and caresses and foolish speeches. How truly noble it is in him to take up his father's burden in this way! I must contrive to help to lighten it.



Chapter 12

XII.

NOVEMBER 6.

AUNTY has put me in the way of doing that. I could not tell her the whole story, of course, but I made her understand that Ernest needed money for a generous purpose, and that I wanted to help him in it. She said the children needed both music and drawing lessons, and that she should be delighted if I would take them in hand. Aunty does not care a fig for accomplishments, but I think I am right in accepting her offer, as the children ought to learn to sing and to play and to draw. Of course I cannot have them come here, as Ernest's father could not bear the noise they would make; besides, I want to take him by surprise, and keep the whole thing a secret.

Nov. 14.-I have seen by the way Martha draws down the corners of her mouth of late, that I am unusually out of favor with her. This evening, Ernest, coming home quite late, found me lolling back in my chair, idling, after a hard day's work with my little cousins, and Martha sewing nervously away at the rate of ten knots an hour, which is the first pun I ever made.

"Why will you sit up and sew at such a rate, Martha?" he asked.

She twitched at her thread, broke it, and began with a new one before she replied.

"I suppose you find it convenient to have a whole shirt to your back."

I saw then that she was making his shirts! It made me both hot and cold at once. What must Ernest think of me?

It is plain enough what he thinks of her, for he said, quite warmly, for him—

"This is really too kind."

What right has she to prowl round among Ernest's things and pry into the state of his wardrobe? If I had not had my time so broken up with giving lessons, I should have found out that he needed new shirts and set to work on them. Though I must own I hate shirt-making. I could not help showing that I felt aggrieved. Martha defended herself by saying that she knew young people would be young people, and would gad about, shirts or no shirts. Now it is not her fault that she thinks I waste my time gadding about, but I am just as angry with her as if she did. Oh, why couldn't I have had Helen, to be a pleasant companion and friend to me, instead of this old-well I won't say what.

And really, with so much to make me happy, what would become of me if I had no trials?

Nov. 15.-To-day Martha has a house-cleaning mania, and has dragged me into it by representing the sin and misery of those deluded mortals who think servants know how to sweep and to scrub. In spite of my resolution not to get under her thumb, I have somehow let her rule and reign over me to such an extent that I can hardly sit up long enough to write this. Does the whole duty of woman consist in keeping her house distressingly clean and prim; in making and baking and preserving and pickling; in climbing to the top shelves of closets lest haply a little dust should lodge there, and getting down on her hands and knees to inspect the carpet? The truth is there is not one point of sympathy between Martha and myself, not one. One would think that our love to Ernest would furnish it. But her love aims at the abasement of his character and mine at its elevation. She thinks I should bow down to and worship him, jump up and offer him my chair when he comes in, feed him with every unwholesome dainty he fancies, and feel myself honored by his acceptance of these services. I think it is for him to rise and offer me a seat, because I am a woman and his wife; and that a silly subservience on my part is degrading to him and to myself. And I am afraid I make known these sentiments to her in a most unpalatable way.

Nov. 18.-Oh, I am so happy that I sing for joy! Dear Ernest has given me such a delightful surprise! He says he has persuaded James to come and spend his college days here, and finally study medicine with him. Dear, darling old James! He is to be here to-morrow. He is to have the little hall bedroom fitted up for him, and he will be here several years. Next to having mother, this is the nicest thing that could happen. We love each other so dearly, and get along so beautifully together I wonder how he'll like Martha with her grim ways, and Ernest's father with his melancholy ones.

Nov. 30.-James has come, and the house already seems lighter and cheerier. He is not in the least annoyed by Martha or her father, and though he is as jovial as the day is long, they actually seem to like him. True to her theory on the subject, Martha invariably rises at his entrance, and offers him her seat! He pretends not to see it, and runs to get one for her! Then she takes comfort in seeing him consume her good things, since his gobbling them down is a sort of tacit tribute to their merits.

Mrs. Embury was here to-day. She says there is not much the matter with Ernest's father, that he has only got the hypo. I don't know exactly what this is, but I believe it is thinking something is the matter with you when there isn't. At any rate I put it to you, my dear old journal, whether it is pleasant to live with people who behave in this way?

In the first place all he talks about is his fancied disease. He gets book after book from the office and studies and ponders his case till he grows quite yellow. One day he says he has found out the seat of his disease to be the liver, and changes his diet to meet that view of the case. Martha has to do him up in mustard, and he takes kindly to blue pills. In a day or two he finds his liver is all right, but that his brain is all wrong. The mustard goes now to the back of his neck, and he takes solemn leave of us all, with the assurance that his last hour has come. Finding that he survives the night, however, he transfers the seat of his disease to the heart, spends hours in counting his pulse, refuses to take exercise lest he should bring on palpitations, and warns us all to prepare to follow him. Everybody who comes in has to hear the whole story, every one prescribes something, and he tries each remedy in turn. These all failing to reach his case, he is s plunged into ten-fold gloom. He complains that God has cast him off forever, and that his sins are like the sands of the sea for number. I am such a goose that I listen to all these varying moods and symptoms with the solemn conviction that he is going to die immediately; I bathe his head, and count his pulse, and fan him, and take down his dying depositions for Ernest's solace after he has gone. And I talk theology to him by the hour, while Martha bakes and brews in the kitchen, or makes mince pies, after eating which one might give him the whole Bible at one dose, without the smallest effect.

To-day I stood by his chair, holding his head and whispering such consoling passages as I thought might comfort him, when James burst in, singing and tossing his cap in the air.

"Come here, young man, and hear my last testimony. I am about to die. The end draws near," were the sepulchral words that made him bring his song to an abrupt close.

"I shall take it very ill of you, sir," quoth James, "if you go and die before giving me that cane you promised me."

Who could die decently under such circumstances? The poor old man revived immediately, but looked a good deal injured. After James had gone out, he said:

"It is very painful to one who stands on the very verge of the eternal world to see the young so thoughtless."

"But James is not thoughtless," I said. "It is only his merry way."

"Daughter Katherine," he went on, "you are very kind to the old man, and you will have your reward. But I wish I could feel sure of your state before God. I greatly fear you deceive yourself, and that the ground of your hope is delusive."

I felt the blood rush to my face. At first I was staggered a good deal. But is a mortal man who cannot judge of his own state to decide mine? It is true he sees my faults; anybody can, who looks. But he does not see my prayers, or my tears of shame and sorrow; he does not know how many hasty words I repress; how earnestly I am aiming, all the day long, to do right in all the little details of life. He does not know that it costs my fastidious nature an appeal to God every time I kiss his poor old face, and that what would be an act of worship in him is an act of self-denial in me. How should he? The Christian life is a hidden known only by the eye that seeth in secret. And I do believe this life is mine.

Up to this time I have contrived to get along without calling Ernest's father by any name. I mean now to make myself turn over a new leaf.

DECEMBER 7.-James is my perpetual joy and pride. We read and sing together, just as we used to do in our old school days. Martha sits by, with her work, grimly approving; for is he not a man? And, as if my cup of felicity were not full enough, I am to have my dear old pastor come here to settle over this church, and I shall once more hear his beloved voice in the pulpit. Ernest has managed the whole thing. He says the state of Dr. C.'s health makes the change quite necessary, and that he can avail himself of the best surgical advice this city affords, in case his old difficulties recur. I rejoice for myself and for this church, but mother will miss him sadly.

I am leading a very busy, happy life, only I am, perhaps, working a little too hard. What with my scholars, the extra amount of housework Martha contrives to get out of me, the practicing I must keep up if I am to teach, and the many steps I have to take, I have not only no idle moments, but none too many for recreation. Ernest is so busy himself that he fortunately does not see what a race I am running.

JANUARY 16, 1838.-The first anniversary of our wedding-day, and like all days, has had its lights and its shades. I thought I would celebrate it in such a way as to give pleasure to everybody, and spent a good deal of time in getting up a little gift for each, from Ernest and myself. And I took special pains to have a good dinner, particularly for father. Yes, I had made up my mind to call him by that sacred name for the first time to-day, cost what it may. But he shut himself up in his room directly after breakfast, and when dinner was ready refused to come down. This cast a gloom over us all Then Martha was nearly distracted because a valuable dish had been broken in the kitchen, and could not recover her equanimity at all. Worst of all Ernest, who is not in the least sentimental, never said a word about our wedding-day, and. didn't give me a thing! I have kept hoping all day that he would make me some little present, no matter how small, but now it is too late; he has gone out to be gone all night, probably, and thus ends the day, an utter failure.

I feel a good deal disappointed. Besides, when I look back over this my first year of married life, I do not feel satisfied with myself at all. I can't help feeling that I have been selfish and unreasonable towards Ernest in a great many ways, and as contrary towards Martha as if I enjoyed a state of warfare between us. And I have felt a good deal of secret contempt for her father, with his moods and tenses, his pill-boxes and his plasters, his feastings and his fastings. I do not understand how a Christian can make such slow progress as I do, and how old faults can hang on so.

If I had made any real progress, should I not be sensible of it?

I have been reading over the early part of this journal, and when I came to the conversation I had with Mrs. Cabot, in which I made a list of my wants, I was astonished that I could ever have had such contemptible ones. Let me think what I really and truly most want now.

First of all, then, if God should speak to me at this moment and offer to give just one thing, and that alone, I should say without hesitation,

Love to Thee, O my Master!

Next to that, if I could have one thing more, I would choose to be a thoroughly unselfish, devoted wife. Down in my secret heart I know there lurks another wish, which I am ashamed of. It is that in some way or other, some right way, I could be delivered from Martha and her father. I shall never be any better while they are here to tempt me!

FEBRUARY 1.-Ernest spoke to-day of one of his patients, a Mrs. Campbell, who is a great sufferer, but whom he describes as the happiest, most cheerful person he ever met. He rarely speaks of his patients. Indeed, he rarely speaks of anything. I felt strangely attracted by what he said of her, and asked so many questions that at last he proposed to take me to see her. I caught at the idea very eagerly, and have just come home from the visit greatly moved and touched. She is confined to her bed, and is quite helpless, and at times her sufferings are terrible. She received me with a sweet smile, however, and led me on to talk more of myself than I ought to have done. I wish Ernest had not left me alone with her, so that I should have had the restraint of his presence.

FEB. 14.-I am so fascinated with Mrs. Campbell that I cannot help going to see her again and again. She seems to me like one whose conflict and dismay are all over, and who looks on other human beings with an almost divine love and pity. To look at life as she does, to feel as she does, to have such a personal love to Christ as she has, I would willingly go through every trial and sorrow. When I told her so, she smiled, a little sadly.

"Much as you envy me," she said, "my faith is not yet so strong that I do not shudder at the thought of a young enthusiastic girl like you, going through all I have done in order to learn a few simple lessons which God was willing to teach me sooner and without the use of a rod, if I had been ready for them."

"But you are so happy now," I said.

"Yes, I am happy," she replied, "and such happiness is worth all it costs. If my flesh shudders at the remembrance of what I have endured, my faith sustains God through the whole. But tell me a little more about yourself, my dear. I should so love to give you a helping hand, if I might."

"You know," I began, "dear Mrs. Campbell, that there are some trials that cannot do us any good. They only call out all there is in us that is unlovely and severe."

"I don't know of any such trials," she replied.

"Suppose you had to live with people who were perfectly uncongenial; who misunderstood you, and who were always getting into your way as stumbling-blocks?"

"If I were living with them and they made me unhappy, I would ask God to relieve me of this trial if He thought it best. If He did not think it best, I would then try to find out the reason. He might have two reasons. One would be the good they might do me. The other the good I might do them."

"But in the case I was supposing, neither party can be of the least use to the other."

"You forget perhaps the indirect good one may in by living with uncongenial, tempting persons. First such people do good by the very self-denial and self-control their mere presence demands. Then, their making one's home less home-like and perfect than it would be in their absence, may help to render our real home in heaven more attractive."

"But suppose one cannot exercise self-control, and is always flying out and flaring up ?" I objected.

"I should say that a Christian who was always doing that," she replied, gravely, "was in pressing need of just the trial God sent when He shut him up to such a life of hourly temptation. We only know ourselves and what we really are, when the force of circumstances bring us out."

"It is very mortifying and painful to find how weak one is."

"That is true. But our mortifications are some of God's best physicians, and do much toward healing our pride and self-conceit."

"Do you really think, then, that God deliberately appoints to some of His children a lot where their worst passions are excited, with a desire to bring good out of this seeming evil? Why I have always supposed the best thing that could happen to me, instance, would be to have a home exactly to my mind; a home where all were forbearing, loving and good-tempered, a sort of little heaven below."

"If you have not such a home, my dear, are you sure it is not partly your own fault?"

"Of course it is my own fault. Because I am very quick-tempered I want to live with good-tempered people."

"That is very benevolent in you," she said, archly.

I colored, but went on.

"Oh, I know I am selfish. And therefore I want live with those who are not so. I want to live with persons to whom I can look for an example, and who will constantly stimulate me to something higher."

"But if God chooses quite another lot for you, you may be sure that He sees that you need something totally different from what you want. You just now that you would gladly go through any trial in order to attain a personal love to Christ that should become the ruling principle of your life. Now as soon as God sees this desire in you, is He not kind, is He not wise, in appointing such trials as He knows will lead to this end?"

I meditated long before I answered. Was God really asking me not merely to let Martha and her father live with me on sufferance, but to rejoice that He had seen fit to let them harass and embitter my domestic life?"

"I thank you for the suggestion," I said, at last.

"1 want to say one thing more," Mrs. Campbell resumed, after another pause. "We look at our fellow-men too much from the standpoint of our own prejudices. They may be wrong, they may have their faults and foibles, they may call out all that is meanest and most hateful in us. But they are not all wrong; they have their virtues, and when they excite our bad passions by their own, they may be as ashamed and sorry as we are irritated. And I think some of the best, most contrite, most useful of men and women, whose prayers prevail with God, and bring down blessings into the homes in which they dwell often possess unlovely traits that furnish them with their best discipline. The very fact that they are ashamed of themselves drives them to God; they feel safe in His presence, and while they lie in the very dust of self-confusion at His feet they are dear to Him and have power with Him."

"That is a comforting word, and I thank you for it," I said. My heart was full, and I longed to stay and hear her talk on. But I had already exhausted her strength. On the way home I felt as I suppose people do when they have caught a basketful of fish. I always am delighted to catch a new idea; I thought I would get all the benefit out of Martha and her father, and as I went down to tea, after taking off my things, felt like a holy martyr who had as good as won a crown.

I found, however, that the butter was horrible. Martha had insisted that she alone was capable of selecting that article, and had ordered a quantity from her own village which I could not eat myself and was ashamed to have on my table. I pushed back my plate in disgust.

"I hope, Martha, that you have not ordered much of this odious stuff!" I cried.

Martha replied that it was of the very first quality, and appealed to her father and Ernest, who both agreed with her, which I thought very unkind and unjust. I rushed into a hot debate on the subject, during which Ernest maintained that ominous silence that indicates his not being pleased, and it irritated and led me on. I would far rather he should say, "Katy, you are behaving like a child and I wish you would stop talking."

"Martha," I said, "you will persist that the butter is good, because you ordered it. If you will only own that, I won't say another word."

"I can't say it," she returned. "Mrs. Jones' butter is invariably good. I never heard it found fault with before. The trouble is you are so hard to please."

"No, I am not. And you can't convince me that if the buttermilk is not perfectly worked out, the butter could be fit to eat."

This speech I felt to be a masterpiece. It was time to let her know how learned I was on the subject of butter, though I wasn't brought up to make it or see it made.

But here Ernest put in a little oil.

"I think you are both right," he said. "Mrs. Jones makes good butter, but just this once she failed. I dare say it won't happen again, and mean while this can be used for making seed-cakes, and we can get a new supply."

This was his masterpiece. A whole firkin of butter made up into seed-cakes!

Martha turned to encounter him on that head, and I slipped off to my room to look, with a miserable sense of disappointment, at my folly and weakness in making so much ado about nothing. I find it hard to believe that it can do me good to have people live with me who like rancid butter, and who disagree with me in everything else.



Chapter 13

XIII.

MARCH 1.

AUNTY sent for us all to dine with her to-day to celebrate Lucy's fifteenth birthday. Ever since Lucy behaved so heroically in regard to little Emma, really saving her life, Ernest says Aunty seems to feel that she cannot do enough for her. The child has taken the most unaccountable fancy to me, strangely enough, and when we got there she came to meet me with something like cordiality.

"Mamma permits me to be the bearer of agreeable news," she said, "because this is my birthday. A friend, of whom you are very fond, has just arrived, and is impatient to embrace you.

"To embrace me?" I cried. "You foolish child!" And the next moment I found myself in my mother's arms!

The despised Lucy had been the means of giving me this pleasure. It seems that Aunty had told her she should choose her own birthday treat, and that, after solemn meditation, she had decided that to see dear mother again would be the most agreeable thing she could think of. I have never told you, dear journal, why I did not go home last summer, and never shall. If you choose to fancy that I couldn't afford it you can!

Well! wasn't it nice to see mother, and to read in her dear, loving face that she was satisfied with her poor, wayward Katy, and fond of her as ever! I only longed for Ernest's coming, that she might see us together, and see how he loved me.

He came; I rushed out to meet him and dragged him in. But it seemed as if he had grown stupid and awkward. All through the dinner I watched for one of those loving glances which should proclaim to mother the good understanding between us, but watched in vain.

"It will come by and by," I thought. "When we get by ourselves mother will see how fond of me he is." But "by and by" it was just the same. I was preoccupied, and mother asked me if I were well. It was all very foolish I dare say, and yet I did want to have her know that with all my faults he still loves me. Then, besides this disappointment, I have to reproach myself for misunderstanding poor Lucy as I have done. Because she was not all fire and fury like myself, I need not have assumed that she had no heart. It is just like me; I hope I shall never be so severe in my judgment again.

APRIL 30.-Mother has just gone. Her visit has done me a world of good. She found out something to like in father at once, and then something good in Martha. She says father's sufferings are real, not fancied; that his error is not knowing where to locate his disease, and is starving one week and over-eating the next. She charged me not to lay up future misery for myself by misjudging him now, and to treat him as a daughter ought without the smallest regard to his appreciation of it. Then as to Martha, she declares that I have no idea how much she does to reduce our expenses, to keep the house in order and to relieve us from care. "But, mother," I said, "did you notice what horrid butter we have? And it is all her doing."

"But the butter won't last forever," she replied. "Don't make yourself miserable about such a trifle. For my part, it is a great relief to me to know that with your delicate health you have this tower of strength to lean on."

"But my health is not delicate, mother."

"You certainly look pale and thin."

"Oh, well," I said, whereupon she fell to giving me all sorts of advice about getting up on step-ladders, and climbing on chairs, and sewing too much and all that.

JUNE 15.-The weather, or something, makes me rather languid and stupid. I begin to think that Martha is not an entire nuisance in the house. I have just been to see Mrs. Campbell. In answer to my routine of lamentations, she took up a book and read me what was called, as nearly as I can remember, "Four steps that lead to peace."

"Be desirous of doing the will of another rather than thine own."

"Choose always to have less, rather than more."

"Seek always the lowest place, and to be inferior to every one."

"Wish always, and pray, that the will of God may be wholly fulfilled in thee."

I was much struck with these directions; but I said, despondently:

"If peace can only be found at the end of such hard roads, I am sure I shall always be miserable."

"Are you miserable now?" she asked.

"Yes, just now I am. I do not mean that I have no happiness; I mean that I am in a disheartened mood, weary of going round and round in circles, committing the same sins, uttering the same confessions, and making no advance."

"My dear," she said, after a time, "have you a perfectly distinct, settled view of what Christ is to the human soul ?"

"I do not know. I understand, of course, more or less perfectly, that my salvation depends on. Him alone; it is His gift."

"But do you see, with equal clearness, that your sanctification must be as fully His gift, as your salvation is?"

"No," I said, after a little thought. "I have had a feeling that He has done His part, and now I must do mine."

"My dear," she said, with much tenderness and feeling, "then the first thing you have to do is to learn Christ."

"But how ?"

"On your knees, my child, on your knees!" She was tired, and I came away; and I have indeed been on my knees.

JULY 1.-I think that I do begin, dimly it is true, but really, to understand that this terrible work which I was trying to do myself, is Christ's work, and must be done and will be done by Him. I take some pleasure in the thought, and wonder why it has all this time been hidden from me, especially after what Dr. C. said in his letter. But I get hold of this idea in a misty, unsatisfactory way. If Christ is to do all, what am I to do? And have I not been told, over and over again, that the Christian life is one of conflict, and that I am to fight like a good soldier?

AUGUST 5.-Dr. Cabot has come just as I need him most. I long for one of those good talks with him which always used to strengthen me so. I feel a perfect weight of depression that makes me a burden to myself and to poor Ernest, who, after visiting sick people all day, needs to come home to a cheerful wife. But he comforts me with the assurance that this is merely physical despondency, and that I shall get over it by and by. How kind, how even tender he is! My heart is getting all it wants from him, only I am too stupid to enjoy him as I ought. Father, too, talks far less about his own bad feelings, and seems greatly concerned at mine. As to Martha I have done trying to get sympathy or love from her. She cannot help it, I suppose, but she is very hard and dry towards me, and I feel such a longing to throw myself on her mercy, and to have one little smile to assure me that she has forgiven me for being Ernest's wife, and so different from what she would have chosen for him.

Dr. Elliott to Mrs. Mortimer:

OCTOBER 4, 1838.

My dear Katy's Mother-You will rejoice with us when I tell you that we are the happy parents of a very fine little boy. My dearest wife sends "an ocean of love" to you, and says she will write her self to-morrow. That I shall not be very likely to allow, as you will imagine. She is doing extremely well, and we have everything to be grateful for. Your affectionate Son, J. E. ELLIOTT.

Mrs. Crofton to Mrs. Mortimer:

I am sure, my dear sister, that the doctor has riot written you more than five lines about the great event which has made such a stir in our domestic circle. So I must try to supply the details you will want to hear.... .1 need not add that our darling Katy behaved nobly. Her self-forgetfulness and consideration for others were really beautiful throughout the whole scene. The doctor may well be proud of her, and I took care to tell him so ill presence of that dreadful sister of his. I never met so angular, so uncompromising a person as she is in all my life. She does not understand Katy, and never can, and I find it hard to realize that living with such a person can furnish a wholesome discipline, which is even more desirable than the most delightful home. And yet I not only know that is true in the abstract, but I see that it is so in the fact. Katy is acquiring both self-control and patience and her Christian character is developing in a way that amazes me. I cannot but hope that God will, in time, deliver her from this trial; indeed, feel sure that when it has done its beneficent work He will do so. Martha Elliott is a good woman, but her goodness is without grace or beauty. She takes excellent care of Katy, keeps her looking as if she had just come out of a band-box, as the saying and always has her room in perfect order. But one misses the loving word, the re-assuring smile, the delicate, thoughtful little forbearance, that ought to adorn every sick-room, and light it up with genuine sunshine. There is one comfort about it, how-ever, and that is that I can spoil dear Katy to my heart's content.

As to the baby, he is a fine little fellow, and his mother is so happy in him that she can afford to do without some other pleasures. I shall write again in a few days. Meanwhile, you may rest assured that I love your Katy almost as well as you do, and shall be with her most of the time till she is quite herself again.

James

to his mother:

Of course there never was such a baby before on the face of the earth. Katy is so nearly wild with joy, that you can't get her to eat or sleep or do any of the proper things that her charming sister-in-law thinks becoming under the circumstances. You never saw anything so pretty in your life, as she is now. I hope the doctor is as much in love with her as I am. He is the best fellow in the world, and Katy is just the wife for him.

Nov. 4.-My darling baby is a month old to-day. I never saw such a splendid child. I love him so that I lie awake nights to watch him. Martha says, in her dry way, that I had better show my love by sleeping and eating for him, and Ernest says I shall, as soon as I get stronger. But I don't get strong, and that discourages me.

Nov. 26.-I begin to feel rather more like myself, and as if I could write with less labor. I have had in these few past weeks such a revelation of suffering, and such a revelation of joy, as mortal mind can hardly conceive of. The world I live in now is a new world; a world full of suffering that leads to unutterable felicity. Oh, this precious, precious baby! How can I thank God enough for giving him to me!

I see now why He has put some thorns into my domestic life; but for them I should be too happy to live. It does not seem just the moment to com plain, and yet, as I can speak to no one, it is a relief, a great relief, to write about my trials. During my whole sickness, Martha has been so hard, so cold, so unsympathizing that sometimes it has seemed as if my cup of trial could not hold another drop. She routed me out of bed when I was so languid that everything seemed a burden, and when sitting up made me faint away. I heard her say to herself, that I had no constitution and had no business to get married. The worst of all is that during that dreadful night before baby came, she kept asking Ernest to lie down and rest, and was sure he would kill himself, and all that, while she had not one word of pity for me. But, oh, why need I let this rankle in my heart! Why cannot I turn my thoughts entirely to my darling baby, my dear husband, and all the other sources of joy that make my home a happy one in spite of this one discomfort! I hope I am learning some useful lessons from my joys and from my trials, and that both will serve to make me in earnest, and to keep me so.

DEC. 4.-We have had a great time about poor baby's name. I expected to call him Raymond, for my own dear father, as a matter of course. It seemed a small gratification for mother in her loneliness. Dear mother! How little I have known all these years what I cost her! But it seems there has been a Jotham in the family ever since the memory of man, each eldest son handing down his father's name to the next in descent, and Ernest's real name is Jotham Ernest—of all the extraordinary combinations! His mother would add the latter name in spite of everything. Ernest behaved very well through the whole affair, and said he had no feeling about it all. But he was so gratified when I decided to keep up the family custom that I feel rewarded for the sacrifice.

Father is in one of his gloomiest moods. As I sat caressing baby to-day he said to me:

"Daughter Katherine, I trust you make it a subject of prayer to God that you may be kept from idolatry."

"No, father," I returned, "I never do. An idol is something one puts in God's place, and I don't put baby there."

He shook his head and said the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

"I have heard mother say that we might love an earthly object as much as we pleased, if we only love God better." I might have added, but of course I didn't; that I prayed every day that I might love Ernest and baby better and better. Poor father seemed puzzled and troubled by what I did say, and after musing a while, went on thus:

'The Almighty is a great and terrible Being. He cannot bear a rival; He will have the whole heart or none of it. When I see a young woman so absorbed in a created being as you are in that infant, and in your other friends, I tremble for you, I tremble for you!"

'But, father," I persisted, "God gave me this child, and He gave me my heart, just as it is."

'Yes; and that heart needs renewing."

"I hope it is renewed," I replied. "But I know there is a great work still to be done in it. And the more effectually it is done the more loving I shall grow. Don't you see, father? Don't you see that the more Christ-like I become the more I shall be filled with love for every living thing?"

He shook his head, but pondered long, as he always does, on whatever he considers audacious. As for me, I am vexed with my presumption in disputing with him, and am sure, too, that I was trying to show off what little wisdom I have picked up. Besides, my mountain does not stand so strong as it did. Perhaps I am making idols out of Ernest and the baby.

JANUARY 16, 1839.-This is our second wedding day. I did not expect much from it, after last year's failure. Father was very gloomy at breakfast, and retired to his room directly after it. No one could get in to make his bed, and he would not come down to dinner. I wonder Ernest lets him go on so. But his rule seems to be to let everybody have their own way. He certainly lets me have mine. After dinner he gave me a book I have been wanting for some time, and had asked him for-"The Imitation of Christ." Ever since that day at Mrs. Campbell's I have felt that I should like it, though I did think, in old times, that it preached too hard a doctrine. I read aloud to him the "Four Steps to Peace"; he said they were admirable, and then took it from me and began reading to himself, here and there. I felt the precious moments when I had got him all to myself were passing away, and was becoming quite out of patience with him when the words "Constantly seek to have less, rather than more," flashed into my mind. I suppose this direction had reference to worldly good, but I despise money, and despise people who love it, The riches I crave are not silver and gold, but my husband's love and esteem. And of these must I desire to have less rather than more? I puzzled myself over this question in vain, but when I silently prayed to be satisfied with just what God chose to give me of the wealth I crave, yes, hunger and thirst for, I certainly felt a sweet content, for the time, at least, that was quite resting and quieting. And just as I had reached that acquiescent mood Ernest threw down his book, and came and caught me in his arms.

"I thank God," he said, "my precious wife, that I married you this day. The wisest thing I ever did was when I fell in love with you and made a fool of myself!"

What a speech for my silent old darling to make! Whenever he says and does a thing out of character, and takes me all by surprise, how delightful he is! Now the world is a beautiful world, and so is everybody in it. I met Martha on the stairs after Ernest had gone, and caught her and kissed her. She looked perfectly astonished.

"What spirits the child has!" I heard her whisper to herself; "no sooner down than up again."

And she sighed. Can it be that under that stern and hard crust there lie hidden affections and perhaps hidden sorrows?

I ran back and asked, as kindly as I could, "What makes you sigh, Martha? Is anything troubling you? Have I done anything to annoy you?"

"You do the best you can," she said, and pushed past me to her own room.



Chapter 14

XIV.

JAN.30.

WHO would have thought I would have anything more to do with poor old Susan Green? Dr. Cabot came to see me to-day, and told me the strangest thing! It seems that the nurse who performed the last offices for her was taken sick about six months ago, and that Dr. Cabot visited her from time to time. Her physician said she needed nothing but rest and good, nourishing food to restore her strength, yet she did not improve at all, and at last it came out that she was not taking the food the doctor ordered, because she could not afford to do so, having lost what little money she had contrived to save. Dr. Cabot, on learning this, gave her enough out of Susan's legacy to meet her case, and in doing so told her about that extraordinary will. The nurse then assured him that when she reached Susan's room and found the state that she was in, and that I was praying with her, she had remained waiting in silence, fearing to interrupt me. She saw me faint, and sprang forward just in time to catch me and keep me from falling.

"I take great pleasure, therefore," Dr. Cabot continued, "in making over Susan's little property to you, to whom it belongs; and I cannot help congratulating you that you have had the honor and the privilege of perhaps leading that poor, benighted soul to Christ, even at the eleventh hour."

"Oh, Dr. Cabot '." I cried, "what a relief it is to hear you say that! For I have always reproached myself for the cowardice that made me afraid to speak to her of her Saviour. It takes less courage to speak to God than to man."

"It is my belief," replied Dr. Cabot, "that every prayer offered in the name of Jesus is sure to have its answer. Every such prayer is dictated by the Holy Spirit, and therefore finds acceptance with God; and if your cry for mercy on poor Susan's soul did not prevail with Him in her behalf, as we may hope it did, then He has answered it in some other way."

These words impressed me very much. To think that every one of my poor prayers is answered! Every one!

Dr. Cabot then returned to the subject of Susan's will, and in spite of all I could say to the contrary, insisted that he had no legal right to this money, and that I had. He said he hoped that it would help to relieve us from some of the petty economies now rendered necessary by Ernest's struggle to meet his father's liabilities. Instantly my idol was rudely thrown down from his pedestal. How could he reveal to Dr. Cabot a secret he had pretended it cost him so much to confide to me, his wife? I could hardly restrain tears of shame and vexation, but did control myself so far as to say that I would sooner die than appropriate Susan's hard earnings to such a purpose, and that I should use it for the poor, as I was sure he would have done. He then advised me to invest the principal, and use the interest from year to year, as occasions presented themselves. So, I shall have more than a hundred dollars to give away each year, as long as I live! How perfectly delightful! I can hardly conceive of anything that give me so much pleasure! Poor old Susan! How many hearts she shall cause to sing for joy!

Feb. 25.-Things have not gone on well of late. Dearly as I love Ernest, he has lowered himself in my eye by telling that to Dr. Cabot. It would have bee far nobler to be silent concerning his sacrifices; and he certainly grows harder, graver, sterner every day. He is all shut up within himself, and I am growing afraid of him. It must be that he is bitterly disappointed in me, and takes refuge in this awful silence. Oh, if I could only please him, and know that I pleased him, how different my life would be!

Baby does not .seem well. I have often plumed myself on the thought that having a doctor for his father would be such an advantage to him, as he would be ready 'to attack the first symptoms of disease. But Ernest hardly listens to me when I express anxiety. about this or that, and if I ask a question he replies, "Oh, you know better than I do. Mothers know' by instinct how to manage babies." But I do not know by instinct, or in any other way, and I often wish that the time I spent over my music had been spent learning how to meet all the little emergencies that are constantly arising since baby came. How I used to laugh in my sleeve at those anxious mothers who lived near us and always seemed to be in hot water. Martha will take baby when I have other things to attend to, and she keeps him every Sunday afternoon that I may go to church, but she knows no more about his physical training than I do. If my dear mother were only here! I feel a good deal worn out. What with the care of baby, who is restless at night, and with whom I walk about lest he should keep Ernest awake, the depressing influence of father's presence, Martha's disdain, and Ernest keeping so aloof from me, life seems to me little better than a burden that I have not strength to carry and would gladly lay down.

MARCH 3.-If it were not for James I believe I should sink. He is so kind and affectionate, so ready to fill up the gaps Ernest leaves empty, and is so sunshiny and gay that I cannot be entirely sad. Baby, too, is a precious treasure; it would be wicked to cloud his little life with my depression. I try to look at him always with a smiling face, for he already distinguishes between a cheerful and a sad countenance.

I am sure that there is something in Christ's gospel that would soothe and sustain me amid these varied trials, if I only knew what it is, and how to put forth my hand and take it. But as it is I feel very desolate. Ernest often congratulates me on having had such a good night's rest, when I have been up and down every hour with baby, half asleep frozen and exhausted. But he shall sleep at any rate.

April 5.-The first rays of spring make me more languid than ever Martha cannot be made to understand that nursing such a large, voracious baby, losing sleep, and confinement within doors, are enough to account for this. She is constantly speaking in terms of praise of those who keep up even when they do feel a little out of sorts, and says she always does. In the evening, after baby gets to sleep, I feel fit for nothing but to lie on the sofa, dozing; but she sees in this only a lazy habit, which ought not to be tolerated, and is constantly devising ways to rouse and set me at work. If I had more leisure for reading, meditation and prayer, I might still be happy. But all the morning, I must have baby till he takes his nap, and as soon as he gets to sleep I must put my room in order, and by that time all the best part of the day is gone. And at night I am so tired that I can hardly feel anything but my weariness. That, too, is .my only chance of seeing Ernest and if I lock my door and fall upon my knees, I keep listening for his step, ready to spring to welcome should he come. This is wrong, I know, but how can I live without one loving word from him, and every day I am hoping it will come.

MAY 2-Aunty was here to-day. I had not seen her for some weeks. She exclaimed at my looks in a tone that seemed to upbraid Ernest and Martha though of course she did not mean to do that.

"You are not fit to have the whole care of that great boy at night," said she, "and you ought to begin to feed him, both for his sake and your own.

"I am willing to take the child at night," Martha said, a little stiffly. "But I supposed his mother preferred to keep him herself."

"And so I do," I cried. "I should be perfectly miserable if I had to give him up just as he is getting teeth, and so wakeful."

"What are you taking to keep up. your strength, dear?" asked Aunty.

"Nothing in particular," I said.

"Very well, it is time the doctor looked after that," she cried. "It really never will do to let you run down in this way. Let me look at baby. Why, my child, his gums need lancing."

"So I have told Ernest half a dozen times," I declared. "But he is always in a hurry, and says another time will do."

"I hope baby won't have convulsions while he is waiting for that other time," said Aunty, looking almost savagely at Martha. I never saw Aunty so nearly out of humor.

At dinner Martha began.

"I think, brother, the baby needs attention. Mrs. Crofton has been here and says so. And she seems to find Katherine run down. I am sure if I had known it I should have taken her in hand and built her up. But she did not complain."

"She never complains," father here put in, calling all the blood I had into my face, my heart so leaped for joy at his kind word.

Ernest looked at me and caught the illumination of my face.

"You look well, dear," he said. "But if you do not feel so you ought to tell us. As to baby, I will attend to him directly."

So Martha's one word prevailed where my twenty fell to the ground.

Baby is much relieved, and has fallen into a sweet sleep. And I have had time to carry my tired, oppressed heart to my compassionate Saviour, and to tell Him what I cannot utter to any human ear. How strange it is that when, through many years of leisure and strength, prayer was only a task, it is now my chief solace if I can only snatch time for it.

Mrs. Embury has a little daughter. How glad I am for her! She is going to give it my name That is a real pleasure.

JULY 4.-Baby is ten months old to-day, and in spite of everything is bright and well. I have come home to mother. Ernest waked up at last to see that something must be done, and when he is awake he is very wide awake. So he brought me home. Dear mother is perfectly delighted, only she will make an ado about my health. But I feel a good deal better, and think I shall get nicely rested here. How pleasant it is to feel myself watched by friendly eyes, my faults excused and forgiven, and what is best in me called out. I have been writing to Ernest, and have told him honestly how annoyed and pained I was at learning that he had told his secret to Dr. Cabot.

JULY 12.-Ernest writes that he has had no communication with Dr. Cabot or any one else on subject that, touching his father's honor as it does, he regards as a sacred one.

"You say, dear," be said, "you often say, that I do not understand you. Are you sure that you understand me ?"

Of course I don't. How can I? How can I reconcile his marrying me and professing to do it with delight, with his indifference to my society, his reserve, his carelessness about my health?

But his letters are very kind, and really warmer than he is. I can hardly wait for them, and then, though my pride bids me to be reticent as he is, my heart runs away with me, and I pour out upon him such floods of affection that I am sure he is half drowned.

Mother says baby is splendid.

AUGUST 1.-When I took leave of Ernest I was glad to get away. I thought he would perhaps find after I was gone that he missed something out of his life and would welcome me home with a little of the old love. But I did not dream that he would not find it easy to do without me till summer was over, and when, this morning, he came suddenly upon us, carpet-bag in hand, I could do nothing but cry in his arms like a tired child.

And now I had the silly triumph of having mother see that he loved me!

"How could you get away?" I asked at last. "And what made you come? And how long can you stay?"

"I could get away because I would," he replied. "And I came because I wanted to come. And I can stay three days."

Three days of Ernest all to myself!

AUGUST 5.-He has gone, but he has left behind him a happy wife and the memory of three happy days.

After the first joy of our meeting was over, we had time for just such nice long talks as I delight in. Ernest began by upbraiding me a little for my injustice in fancying he had betrayed his father to Dr. Cabot.

"That is not all," I interrupted, "I even thought you had made a boast of the sacrifices you were making."

"That explains your coldness," he returned.

"My coldness! Of all the ridiculous things in the world!" I cried.

"You were cold, for you and I felt it. Don't you know that we undemonstrative men prefer loving winsome little women like you, just because you are our own opposites? And when the pet kitten turns into a cat with claws-"

"Now, Ernest, that is really too bad! To compare me to a cat!"

"You certainly did say some sharp things to me about that time."

"Did I, really? Oh, Ernest, how could I?"

"And it was at a moment when I particularly needed your help. But do not let us dwell upon it. We love each other; we are both trying to do right in all the details of life. I do not think we shall ever get very far apart."

"But, Ernest-tell me-are you very, very much disappointed in me?"

"Disappointed? Why, Katy!"

"Then what did make you seem so indifferent? What made you so slow to observe how miserably I was, as to health?"

"Did I seem indifferent? I am sure I never loved you better. As to your health, I am ashamed of myself. I ought to have seen how feeble you were. But the truth is, I was deceived by your bright ways with baby. For him you were all smiles and gayety."

"That was from principle," I said, and felt a good deal elated as I made the announcement.

"He fell into a fit of musing, and none of my usual devices for arousing him had any effect. I pulled his hair and his ears, and shook him, but he remained unmoved.

At last he began again.

"Perhaps I owe it to you, dear, to tell you that when I brought my father and sister home to live with us, I did not dream how trying a thing it would be to you. I did not know that he was a confirmed invalid, or that she would prove to possess a nature so entirely antagonistic to yours. I thought my father would interest himself in reading, visiting, etc, as he used to do. And I thought Martha's judgment would be of service to you, while her household skill would relieve you of some care. But the whole thing has proved a failure. I am harassed by the sight of my father, sitting there in his corner so penetrated with gloom; I reproach myself for it, but I almost dread coming home. When a man has been all day encompassed with sounds and sights of suffering, he naturally longs for cheerful faces and cheerful voices in his own house. Then Martha's pertinacious-I won't say hostility to my little wife-what shall I call it?"

"It is only want of sympathy. She is too really good to be hostile to any one.

"Thank you, my darling," he said, "I believe you do her justice."

"I am afraid I have not been as forbearing with her as I ought," I said. "But, oh, Ernest, it is because I have been jealous of her all along!"

"That is really too absurd."

"You certainly have treated her with more deference than you have me. You looked up to her and looked down upon me. At least it seemed so."

"My dear child, you have misunderstood the whole thing. I gave Martha just what she wanted most; she likes to be looked up to. And I gave you what I thought you wanted most, my tenderest love. And I expected that I should have your sympathy amid the trials with which I am burdened, and that with your strong nature I might look to you to help me bear them. I know you have the worst of it, dear child, but then you have twice my strength. I believe women almost always have more than men."

"I have, indeed, misunderstood you. I thought you liked to have them here, and that Martha's not fancying me influenced you against me. But now I know just what you want of me, and I can give it, darling."

After this all our cloud melted away. I only long to go home and show Ernest that he shall have one cheerful face about him, and have one cheerful voice.

AUGUST 12.-I have had a long letter from Ernest to day. He says he hopes he has not been selfish and unkind in speaking of his father and sister as he has done, because he truly loves and honors them both, and wants me to do so, if I can. His father had called them up twice to see him die and to receive his last messages. This always happens when Ernest has been up all the previous night; there seems a fatality about it.



Chapter 15

XV.

OCTOBER 4

HOME again, and with my dear Ernest delighted to see me. Baby is a year old to-day, and, as usual, father, who seems to abhor anything like a merry-making, took himself off to his room. To-morrow he will be all the worse for it, and will be sure to have a theological battle with somebody.

OCTOBER 5.-The somebody was his daughter Katherine, as usual. Baby was asleep in my lap and I reached out for a book which proved to be a volume of Shakespeare which had done long service as an ornament to the table, but which nobody ever read on account of the small print. The battle then began thus:

Father.-" I regret to see that worldly author in your hands, my daughter."

Daughter-a little mischievously.-"Why, were you wanting to talk, father?

"No, I am too feeble to talk to-day. My pulse is very weak."

"Let me read aloud to you, then."

"Not from that profane book."

"It would do you good. You never take any recreation. Do let me read a little."

Father gets nervous.

"Recreation is a snare. I must keep my soul ever fixed on divine things."

"But can you?"

"No, alas, no. It is my grief and shame that I do not."

"But if you would indulge yourself in a little harmless mirth now and then, your mind would get rested and you would return to divine things with fresh zeal. Why should not the mind have its seasons of rest as well as the body?"

"We shall have time to rest in heaven. Our business here on earth is to be sober and vigilant because of our adversary; not to be reading plays."

"I don't make reading plays my business, dear father. I make it my rest and amusement."

"Christians do not need amusement; they find rest, refreshment, all they want, in God."

"Do you, father?"

"'Alas, no. He seems a great way off."

"To me He seems very near. So near that He can see every thought of my heart Dear father, it is your disease that makes everything so unreal to you. God is really so near, really loves us so; is so sorry for us! And it seems hard, when you are so good, and so intent on pleasing Him, that you get no comfort out of Him."

"I am not good, my daughter I am a vile worm of the dust."

"Well, God is good, at any rate, and He would never have sent His Son to die for you if He did not love you." So then I began to sing. Father likes to hear me sing, and the sweet sense I had that all I had been saying was true and more than true, made me sing with joyful heart.

I hope it is not a mere miserable presumption that makes me dare to talk so to poor father. Of course, he is ten times better than I am, and knows ten times as much, but his disease, whatever it is, keeps his mind befogged. I mean to begin now to pray that light may shine into his soul. It would be delightful to see the peace of God shining in that pale, stern face.

MARCH 28.-It is almost six months since I wrote that. About the middle of October father had one of his ill turns one night, and we were all called up. He asked for me particularly, and Ernest came for me at last. He was a good deal agitated, and would not stop to half dress myself, and as I had a slight cold already, I suppose I added to it then. At any rate I was taken very sick, and the worst cough ever had has racked my poor frame almost to pieces. Nearly six months confinement to my room; six months of uselessness during which I have been a mere cumberer of the ground. Poor Ernest! What a hard time he has had! Instead of the cheerful welcome home I was to give him whenever he entered the house, here I have lain exhausted, woe- begone and good for nothing. It is the bitterest disappointment I ever had. My ambition is to be the sweetest, brightest, best of wives; and what with my childish follies, and my sickness, what a weary life my dear husband has had! But how often I have prayed that God would do His will in defiance, if need be, of mine! I have tried to remind myself of that every day. But I am too tired to write any more now.

MARCH 30.-This experience of suffering has filled my mind with new thoughts. At one time I was so sick that Ernest sent for mother. Poor mother, she had to sleep with Martha. It was a great comfort to have her here, but I knew by her coming how sick I was, and then I began to ponder the question whether I was ready to die. Death looked to me as a most solemn, momentous event-but there was something very pleasant in the thought of being no longer a sinner, but a redeemed saint, and of dwelling forever in Christ's presence. Father came to see me when I had just reached this point.

"My dear daughter," he asked, "are you prepared to face the Judge of all the earth?"

"No, dear father," I said, "Christ will do that for me."

"Have you no misgivings?"

I could only smile; I had no strength to talk.

Then I heard Ernest—my dear, calm, self-controlled Ernest—burst out crying and rush out of the room. I looked after him, and how I loved him! But I felt that I loved my Saviour infinitely more,and that if He now let me come home to be with Him I could trust Him to be a thousand-fold more to Ernest than I could ever be, and to take care of my darling baby and my precious mother far better than I could. The very gates of heaven seemed open to let me in. And then they were suddenly shut in my face, and I found myself a poor, weak, tempted creature here upon earth. I, who fancied myself an heir of glory, was nothing but a peevish, human creature-very human indeed, overcome if Martha shook the bed, as she always did, irritated if my food did not come at the right moment, or was not of the right sort, hurt and offended if Ernest put on at one less anxious and tender than he had used when I was very ill, and-in short, my own poor faulty self once more. Oh, what fearful battles I fought for patience, forbearance and unselfishness! What sorrowful tears of shame I shed over hasty, impatient words and fretful tones! No wonder I longed to be gone where weakness should be swallowed up in strength, and sin give place to eternal perfection!

But here I am, and suffering and work lie before me, for which I feel little physical or mental courage. But "blessed be the will of God."

APRIL 5.-I was alone with father last evening, Ernest and Martha both being out, and soon saw by the way he fidgeted in his chair that he had something on his mind. So I laid down the book I was reading, and asked him what it was.

"My daughter," he began, "can you bear a plain word from an old man?"

I felt frightened, for I knew I had been impatient to Martha of late, in spite of all my efforts to the contrary. I am still so miserably unwell.

"I have seen many death-beds," he went on; "but I never saw one where there was not some dread of the King of Terrors exhibited; nor one where there was such absolute certainty of having found favor with God to make the hour of departure entirely free from such doubts and such humility as becomes a guilty sinner about to face his Judge."

"I never saw such a one, either," I replied; "but ere have been many such deaths, and I hardly know of any scene that so honors and magnifies the Lord."

"Yes," he said, slowly; "but they were old, mature, ripened Christians."

"Not always old, dear father. Let me describe to you a scene Ernest described to me only yesterday."

He waved his hand in token that this would delay his coming to the point he was aiming at.

"To speak plainly," he said, "I feel uneasy about you, my daughter. You are young and in the bloom of life, but when death seemed staring you in the face, you expressed no anxiety, asked for no counsel, showed no alarm. It must be pleasant to possess so comfortable a persuasion of our acceptance with God; but is it safe to rest on such an assurance while we know that the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked ?"

I thank you for the suggestion;" I said; "and, dear father, do not be afraid to speak still more plainly. You live in the house with me, see all my shortcomings and my faults, and I cannot wonder that you think me a poor, weak Christian. But do you really fear that I am deceived in believing that notwithstanding this I do really love my God and Saviour and am His Child?"

"No," he said, hesitating a little, "I can't say that, exactly—I can't say that."

This hesitation distressed me. At first it seemed to me that my life must have uttered a very uncertain sound if those who saw it could misunderstand its language. But then I reflected that it was, at best, a very faulty life, and that its springs of action were not necessarily seen by lookers-on.

Father saw my distress and perplexity, and seemed touched by them.

Just then Ernest came in with Martha, but seeing that something was amiss, the latter took herself off to her room, which I thought really kind of her.

"What is it, father? What is it, Katy?" asked Ernest; looking from one troubled face to the other.

I tried to explain.

"I think, father, you may safely trust my wife's spiritual interests to me," Ernest said, with warmth. "You do not understand her. I do. Because there is nothing morbid about her, because she has a sweet, cheerful confidence in Christ; you doubt and misjudge her. You may depend upon it that people are individual in their piety as in other things, and cannot all be run in one mould. Katy has a playful way of speaking, I know, and often expresses her strongest feelings with what seems like levity, and is, perhaps, a little reckless about being misunderstood in consequence."

He smiled on me, as he thus took up the cudgels in my defence, and I never felt so grateful to him in my life. The truth is, I hate sentimentalism so cordially, and have besides such an instinct to conceal my deepest, most sacred emotions, that I do not wonder people misunderstand and misjudge me.

"I did not refer to her playfulness," father returned. "Old people must make allowances for the young; they must make allowances. What pains me is that this child, full of life and gayety as she is, sees death approach without that becoming awe and terror which befits mortal man."

Ernest was going to reply, but I broke in eagerly upon his answer:

"It is true that I expressed no anxiety when I believed death to be at hand. I felt none. I had given myself away to Christ, and He had received me and why should I be afraid to take His hand and go where He led me? And it is true that I asked for no counsel. I was too weak to ask questions or to like to have questions asked;, but my mind was bright and wide awake while my body was so feeble, and I took counsel of God. Oh, let me read to you two passages from the life of Caroline Fry which will make you understand how a poor sinner looks upon death. The first is an extract from a letter written after learning that her days on earth were numbered.

"'As many will hear and will not understand, why I want no time of, preparation, often desired by far holier ones than I, I tell you why, and shall tell others, and so shall you. It is not because I am so holy but because I am so sinful. The peculiar character of my religious experience has always been a deep, an agonizing sense of sin; the sin of yesterday, of to-day, confessed with anguish hard to be endured, and cried for pardon that could not be unheard; each day cleansed anew in Jesus' blood, and each day more and more hateful in my own sight; what can I do in death I have not done in life? What, do in this week, when I am told I cannot live, other than I did last week, when knew it not? Alas, there is but one thing undone, to serve Him better; and the death-bed is no place for that. Therefore I say, if I am not ready now, I shall not be by delay, so far as I have to do with it. If He has more to do in me that is His part. I need not ask Him not to spoil His work by too much haste.'

"And these were her dying words, a few days later:

"'This is my bridal-day, the beginning of my life. I wish there should be no mistake about the reason of my desire to depart and to be with Christ. I confess myself the vilest, chiefest of sinners, and I desire to go to Him that I may be rid of the burden of sin-the sin of my nature-not the past, repented of every day, but the present, hourly, momentary sin, which I do commit, or may commit -the sense of which at times drives me half mad with grief!"'

I shall never forget the expression of father's face, as I finished reading these remarkable words. He rose slowly from his seat, and came and kissed me on the forehead. Then he left the room, but returned with a large volume, and pointing to a blank page, requested me to copy them there. He com plains that I do not write legibly, so I printed them as plainly as I could, with my pen.

JUNE 20.-On the first of May, there came to us, with other spring flowers, our little fair-haired, blue-eyed daughter. How rich I felt when I heard Ernest's voice, as he replied to a question asked at the door, proclaim, "Mother and children all well." To think that we, who thought ourselves rich before are made so much richer now!

But she is not large and vigorous, as little Ernest was, and we cannot rejoice in her without some misgiving. Yet her very frailty makes her precious to us. Little Ernest hangs over her with an almost lover-like pride and devotion, and should she live I can imagine what a protector he will be for her. I have had to give up the care of him to Martha. During my illness I do not know what would have become of him but for her. One of the pleasant events of every day at that time, was her bringing him to me in such exquisite order, his face shining with health and happiness, his hair and dress so beautifully neat and clean. Now that she has the care of him, she has become very fond of him, and he certainly forms one bond of union between us, for we both agree that he is the handsomest, best, most remarkable child that ever lived, or ever will live.

JULY 6.-I have come home to dear mother with both my children. Ernest says our only hope for baby is to keep her out of the city during the summer months.

What a petite wee maiden she is! Where does all the love come from? If I had had her always I do not see how I could be more fond of her. And do people call it living who never had any children?

JULY 10.-lf this darling baby lives, I shall always believe it is owing to my mother's prayers.

I find little Ernest has a passionate temper, and a good deal of self-will. But he has fine qualities. I wish he had a better mother. I am so impatient with him when he is wayward and perverse! What he needs is a firm, gentle hand, moved by no caprice, and controlled by the constant fear of God. He never ought to hear an irritable word, or a sharp tone; but he does hear them, I must own with grief and shame. The truth is, it is so long since I really felt strong and well that I am not myself, and can not do him justice, poor child. Next to being a perfect wife I want to be a perfect mother. How mortifying, how dreadful in all things to come short of even one's own standard What approach, then, does one make to God's standard?

Mother seems very happy to have us here, though we make so much trouble. She encourages me in all my attempts to control myself and to control my dear little boy, and the chapters she gives me out of her own experience are as interesting as a novel, and a good deal more instructive.

AUGUST.-Dear Ernest has come to spend a week with us. He is all tired out, as there has been a great deal of sickness in the city, and father has had quite a serious attack. He brought with him a nurse for baby, as one more desperate effort to strengthen her constitution.

I reproached him for doing it without consulting me, but he said mother bad written to tell him that I was all worn out and not in a state to have the care of the children. It has been a terrible blow to me One by one I am giving up the sweetest maternal duties. God means that I shall be nothing and do nothing; a mere useless sufferer. But when I tell Ernest so, he says I am everything to him, and that God's children please him just as well when they sit patiently with folded hands, if that is His will, as when they are hard at work. But to be at work, to be useful, to be necessary to my husband and children, is just what I want, and I. do find it hard to be set against the wall, as it were, like an old piece of furniture no longer of any service I see now that my first desire has not been to please God, but to please myself, for I am restless under His restraining hand, and find my prison a very narrow one. I would be willing to bear any other trial, if I could only have health and strength for my beloved ones. I pray for patience with bitter tears.



Chapter 16

XVI.

OCTOBER.

WE are all at home together once more. The parting with mother was very painful. Every year that she lives now increases her loneliness, and makes me long to give her the shelter of my home. But in the midst of these anxieties, how much I have to make me happy! Little Ernest is the life and soul of the house; the sound of his feet pattering about, and all his prattle, are the sweetest music to my ear; and his heart is brimful of love and joy, so that he shines on us all like a sunbeam. Baby is improving every day, and is one of those tender, clinging little things that appeal to everybody's love and sympathy. I never saw a more angelic face than hers. Father sits by the hour looking at her. To-day he said:

"Daughter Katherine, this lovely little one is not meant for this sinful world."

"This world needs to be adorned with lovely little ones," I said. "And baby was never so well as she is now."

"Do not set your heart too fondly upon her," he returned. "I feel that she is far too dear to me."

"But, father, we could give her to God if He should ask for her Surely, we love Him better than we love her."

But as I spoke a sharp pang shot through and through my soul, and I held my little fair daughter closely in my arms, as if I could always keep her there It may be my conceit, but it really does seem as if poor father was getting a little fond of me. Ever since my own sickness I have felt great sympathy for him, and he feels, no doubt, that I give him something that neither Ernest nor Martha can do, since they were never sick one day in their lives. I do wish he could look more at Christ and at what He has done and is doing for us. The way of salvation is to me a wide path, absolutely radiant with the glory of Him who shines upon it; I see my shortcomings; I see my sins, but I feel myself bathed, as it were, in the effulgent glow that proceeds directly from the throne of God and the Lamb. It seems as if I ought to have some misgivings about my salvation, but I can hardly say that I have one. How strange, how mysterious that is! And here is father, so much older, so much better than I am, creeping along in the dark! I spoke to Ernest about it. He says I owe it to my training, in a great measure, and that my mother is fifty years in advance of her age. But it can't be all that. It was only after years of struggle and prayer that God gave me this joy.

NOVEMBER 24.-Ernest asked me yesterday if I knew that Amelia and her husband had come here to live, and that she was very ill.

"I wish you would go to see her, dear," he added. "She is a stranger here, and in great need of a friend." I felt extremely disturbed. I have lost my old affection for her, and the idea of meeting her husband was unpleasant.