but the earthly fathers whom I know seem generally to care quite as much about their daughters as they do about their sons; and so, therefore, I suppose our Heavenly Father does.”

"But the Bible itself always sets men above women. Sam said it did. Don't you think so?"

"Now we are getting beyond our depth, I am afraid. I do not know enough about the Bible to talk about it much. But I do not think the Apostles set Simon Magus, for example, at all above Anna the prophetess, or Phebe, deaconess of the church in Cenchrea. They said that women should not go with their heads uncovered, nor speak in the churches; but I have heard a Quaker minister declare that the churches then were very different from the churches now, and all the customs there from the customs here; and at any rate I do not want to take off my bonnet and speak loud in our meeting-houses even, nor, I rather think, do you. They said that wives should obey their husbands; but they said also that husbands should cherish their wives even as they did their own bodies. When they do cherish them after that fashion, I think that obedience to their commands will in most cases partake of the nature of selfindulgence quite as much as of selfdenial. They said, too, that children must obey their parents. Does not that mean that sons must obey their mothers, as well as daughters their fathers? St. Peter even went so far as to say, 'Yea, all of you be subject one to another,' as if a religious obedience and wise humility were too good things for any of God's children to forego. But when we come to the words of our Saviour, (which were meant, I suppose, not so much for one time, like the epistles, as for all times,) I have thought it was really wonderful to look and see how he bore women in his mind, how often he drew his illustrations even from their work, and, not contented with including them in his general discourses, how particularly and frequently he used to

speak of them in prophecies and parables. Out of the four friends that he 'loved,' two were women; and even the virtues which he urged on all mankind were in large part those which mankind are apt to enforce peculiarly on womankind, and to call the womanly virtues. At any rate, Mr. Blight may read the Bible through and through, his best friend could wish him no better employment, if he would but make a good use of it and give up some of his other reading for it, he will nowhere there find it enjoined on Christian women to suffer themselves to be trifled with for his 'development,' nor to languish and pine themselves to death, like flowers thrown away, for his triumph."

"His triumph!" cried Nelly, starting and turning pale. "O Katy! could he be so cruel as to triumph over me?"

"I do not know him quite well enough to be sure what he could not do, if he had a chance. He cannot very long, I think, if he hears of you out again among the other young people, looking pretty, well, and merry. However, his opinion, good or bad, is not the most important thing, you know, darling; so we will say no more about it, and try not to care too much. He is not your master, thank God! and you are in no way accountable to him. See here; your little Bible gives us other and far nobler things to care about." I took it from her bureau, turned over the leaves, and read, "The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, how she may be holy both in body and in spirit."

"Mark it will you please, dear Katy? with the date. 'Holy in spirit,'" repeated Nelly, very thoughtfully, -"that must mean a great deal."

"Full of faith, hope, and charity, at the very least; and when we have the right faith in God, and in His love for us, I suppose the simple fact of His denying us a thing will satisfy us of its being a thing which we are better without."

"Charity!'" said she, with a glimmer of archness in her smile, that

I rose to go. I was tired for once, before nine o'clock at night.

"You have done it now!" exclaimed she, springing up. "God bless you, good, kind Katy! He will and must and does bless you, I am sure, for your own sake, if not for mine! But you will come again? -for I have told. And you really think it is not so very dreadful, and I can live it down?" whispered she, clinging round me, and going with me to the door.

"I am sure you can. If God is for us, who shall be against us?'" said I, kissing her. "Pray-for yourself and me!"

I took the longest way home, to cool my cheeks. "Well," I soliloquized, "at this rate I am in a fair way to be cured for life of every predisposition to sentiment, homoeopathically, except that it must be owned that I am treated with it in anything but infinitesimal doses. Nelly would hardly be so ready to treat a topic which I, her senior, never discussed with any one before, and desire that I never may again, if she had not had the benefit of those lessons from Mr. Sam."

Next, I thought that, even if I should still be for some time subject to relapses, it was still a very bright side that my object was not Mr. Sam, and was moreover quite unaware of my folly. Next, I saw that even my object's being as bad as Mr. Sam would be a less insurmountable barrier between him and me than his being the betrothed of another. The latter disqualification, indeed, put him much more upon the footing of a brother than could the former. Next, I considered that he was-as I had told Nelly of her object- not my master, and that I was not accountable to him; in which consideration also I found a balsam; for I had lately sometimes been troubled with wondering whether

he would not think me cold and ungrateful in leaving Emma's letters so long unanswered. They always contained kind, honest messages from him, which brought the kind, honest fellow up before me, and, in spite of me, renewed feelings which it would be wrong to cherish; and therefore I was sure that it was right to let the correspondence languish and drop. It had never on my part been constant or very frequent. Emma knew that I had little time or taste for writing. He would not be made unhappy by my silence; and in the other world he would understand and approve of it, even if he misunderstood and disapproved of it in this. But because I was still very young, that other world did seem then "very far off."

Milton says that anger and laughter are the two most rational passions of the human mind. Now I cannot say that I am always most rational when I am angry, nor have I been able to perceive that my neighbors are; but I really believe that I often am when I laugh. Accordingly, on reaching home and putting away my bonnet and shawl, I made an attempt at something like an audible smile, as, summing up the lessons of the day, I said to myself, that, after all that could be urged on the side of Gloom, Vapors, and Company, Miss Katy Morne was of all human beings the one whose continued regard and respect were the most important to me; that by the help of a good Providence there was good hope of my being able to manage myself and my affairs in such a manner as to secure her regard and respect; and, finally, that matters were therefore by no means so bad as they might be.

Then I tried Sydney Smith's specifics against feminine despondency, put a new ribbon into my hair, and a ripe pear-by instalments — into my mouth, read over again a kind little note I had a few hours before received from Miss Dudley, containing directions about some illustrations and commendations of others, and then found myself, after all the trials of the morn

ing, in a very fair condition to take out my paint-box and refresh myself further with a little hard work.

CHAPTER XI.

ONE morning, some time after, I was sitting, finishing the last of the illustrations ordered, in the warm southparlor. Mrs. Physick was out with her husband, for an airing. Little Pill in the pill-box slept obligingly at my side, with no further attentions from me than an occasional mechanical strophe of the commercial cradle-song, "Buy, buy, baby!" Thus I was at full liberty to drown my abstracted soul in cobalt and carmine.

Thus again it must have been that I did not hear when the door-bell rang, nor notice the tones of a remarkably gentleman-like voice, when the never very fleet-footed Rosanna opened the front door, and that, when I did at last hear a knock at the parlor door, I only emitted an indifferent "Come in," and never thought to turn my head, till the door was opened, and the voice came in by itself, saying doubtfully, "I beg your pardon; did you say come in?"

Then, indeed, I looked round and started up, rejoicing that my fingers were no paintier; for the voice was Mr. Dudley's, and so was the fine, tall, athletic person that stood, hat in hand, waiting at the threshold where he had been left without a guide by the unskilful portress.

I welcomed him, set him a chair, and dipped my fingers in the old-fashioned finger-bowl, and wiped them on the napkin, which I always kept by me when I painted. He took it all very quietly, and looked so unembarrassed and abstracted that I hoped he did not see the slight confusion into which my own absence of mind had thrown me.

"I called," he began, when he saw me ready to give him my attention, "partly on my own business, and partly on my sister's. She wishes for the pleasure of your company for a good long day on Saturday; and as I had

not time to wait for a note, she intrusted me with a verbal message. You will be able to gratify her, I hope?

"Thank you, Mr. Dudley; I shall be very much pleased to come."

"Then she will call, or send for you, soon after ten. Will that be too early?" "Not for me."

"She never thinks it too early for you to come, nor too late for you to go; and that brings me to the other part of my business. Dr. Physick tells me that you are thinking of returning to the school-room."

"Yes; I am waiting only to find one open to me in this town. If I cannot before many more months, I shall probably go elsewhere."

"Have you a preference for the occupation of a teacher?"

I could hardly suppress a smile as I answered that I had not.

"Then I need have no hesitation in proposing to you, with your guardian's consent, another?"

"None, certainly."

"Then I will propose, though certainly not urge upon you, another, which I heartily hope you will not think too arduous at least for a trial. My sister, in the state of health in which she is now, needs a friend constantly at hand. Bonner, her maid, is worse than nobody in any emergency; and she does not like the idea of having a professional nurse. Then my children need daily companionship and assistance in their lessons. I have been in the habit of giving them this myself, since my sister has been so unwell; but she is often too feeble to hear it going on now, I am sure, without too much fatigue, and if I take them to a room apart, I leave her alone just at the time when she is most in want of me. Then I need for myself a competent draughtsman and secretary. My plan is, so far as I can be said to have a definite plan, and supposing that you incline to it, that you shall employ yourself for my sister, in reading, walking, and driving with her, and so forth, or for me under her oversight in writing or painting, - from about nine till about one every morning, and

knew you could be much more useful to Miss Dudley and the children. Of course, it was not for me to dispute the point with him."

Julia, after a hasty look at the baby in the kitchen, came in and caught me by the hand with a swimming smile. "Well, Katy," cried she, "shall you go?"

"I don't know. I am so astonished. Had I better?

"We can't advise: we are interested parties," said she, turning her face away and hurrying out of the room again.

"You see how it is," said her husband, sitting down in front of me, as if for an examination and prescription.

Julia hates the thought of parting with you; and, for that matter, so do I. But it is my duty to look to your interests. At present, if I should die, there is almost no provision for you. You are strong enough to work for yourself now; but no mortal strength is to be reckoned upon further than we can see it. There is really no chance of your getting either of the schools here, I find; and a school would n't pay. You want to clear off the mortgage?"

"Why, yes. So I could, could not I, soon, with such a salary as that?"

"Yes. It is a better one than you would be at all likely to get anywhere as a teacher; and you would be close by, where you could see us whenever you liked, and where I could see to you, if anything was the matter. Then, keeping school did not appear to agree with you, and being with Miss Dudley always does."

"So it does; but going away from all of you, at a minute's notice, does not quite so well." I was afraid he was not quite sorry enough, and meant to make him so. He held his tongue, and served me right.

"It seems almost like a caprice in them to take such a sudden fancy to me," said I, quarrelling with my bread and butter, as a kitten growls at and shakes her meat for the very reason that she is so delighted with it. "They are so very little acquainted with me!"

"Don't trust to that to play any of your tricks with them, pussy. I heard Master Paul say, the last time I paid my respects to his arm: 'You know this was quite a wild place when we first colonized it? Well, one day when Aunt Lizzy walked out, she met with a lynx and changed eyes with him.'”

"What can they really know about me?" persisted I perversely.

"Set your heart at rest. They know quite enough about you," said he, setting up his eyebrows with a queer look. "Before Miss Dudley ever saw you, I told her the worst she had to expect. It was painful; but I thought it my duty; and I did not shrink from it." “Ah, now, Doctor, what did you tell her?"

"Ah, what did I?" repeated he with a meditative air of self-examination. "If you ask her, perhaps she will tell you."

"No matter; you 'll tell Julia; and I can get it all out of her just as well."

"No; I sha'n't tell Julia," said he, getting up and walking off, — and I never could find out that he did.

He had counselled me against his pleasure, I believe, against his interest, I am sure. Real estate was rising every day in Beverly; and he would have been glad, on every account but mine, to own our house.

-an

George was very angry when he heard how cheap it had been sold, and came down to Beverly, and talked of prosecuting Dr. Physick for a fraud. But the lawyer whom he consulted · honest man, and well affected towards my mother and all her children - told him that he was well known to have himself forced the property into the market against advice and entreaty; that everything had been done fairly and openly; and that nothing but mortification and further loss could come of his carrying his cause into court.

My guardian reminded George of the letter my mother had sent him. He treated the whole story as a fabrication of ours, and denied that any such document had ever been signed by her, seen by him, or sent by me. The