And so he might have been a good husband.' O it is piteous--that sorrow of aged women! In early youth, perhaps, they said to themselves, 'I shall be happy when I have a husband to love me best of all'; then, when the husband was too careless, 'My child will comfort me'; then, through the mother's watching and toil, 'My child will repay me all when it grows up.' And at last, after the long journey of years has been wearily travelled through, the mother's heart is weighed down by a heavier burthen, and no hope remains but the grave.
But this morning old Mrs.Dempster sat down in her easy-chair without any painful, suppressed remembrance of the pre-ceding night.
'I declare mammy looks younger than Mrs.Crewe, who is only sixty-five,' said Janet.

'Mrs.Crewe will come to see you today, mammy, and tell you all about her troubles with the Bishop and the collation.

She'll bring her knitting, and you'll have a regular gossip together.' 'The gossip will be all on one side, then, for Mrs.Crewe gets so very deaf, I can't make her hear a word.

And if I motion to her, she always understands me wrong.' 'O, she will have so much to tell you today, you will not want to speak yourself.

You, who have patience to knit those wonderful counterpanes, mammy, must not be impatient with dear Mrs.Crewe.Good old lady! I can't bear her to think she's ever tiresome to people, and you know she's very ready to fancy herself in the way.