CHAPTER LVII.
THE END OF THE BEGINNING.
Joseph Jasper and Mary Marston were married the next summer.

Mary did not leave her shop, nor did Joseph leave his forge.

Mary was proud of her husband, not merely because he was a musician, but because he was a blacksmith.

For, with the true taste of a right woman, she honored the manhood that could do hard work.

The day will come, and may I do something to help it hither, when the youth of our country will recognize that, taken in itself, it is a more manly, and therefore in the old true sense a more _gentle_ thing, to follow a good handicraft, if it make the hands black as a coal, than to spend the day in keeping books, and making up accounts, though therein the hands should remain white--or red, as the case may be.