"You've been a great help to me in many ways.

That pair of stockings, now, you're knitting for Jack--that's a help, for I couldn't have got time for them myself." "I don't expect," said Aunt Rachel, in the same sunny manner, "that I shall be able to do it long.

From the pains I have in my hands sometimes, I expect I'm goin' to lose the use of 'em soon, and be as useless as old Mrs.Sprague, who for the last ten years of her life had to sit with her hands folded on her lap.

But I wouldn't stay to be a burden--I'd go to the poorhouse first.

But perhaps," with the look of a martyr, "they wouldn't want me there, because I'd be discouragin' 'em too much." Poor Jack, who had so unwittingly raised this storm, winced under the last words, which he knew were directed at him.
"Then why," asked he, half in extenuation, "why don't you try to look pleasant and cheerful?
Why won't you be jolly, as Tom Piper's aunt is ?" "I dare say I ain't pleasant," said Rachel, "as my own nephew twits me with it.