r temperament, her habits of
activity, and disinterestedness, made it, in the outset, out of the
question that any man living with her as her husband should ever fully
learn a husband's duties and obligations.

X.

And now we shall pass over an interval of eight years in the history of
"Gunn's." For it is only the "strange history" of Eben and Hetty that
was to be told in this story, and in these years' history was nothing
strange; unless, indeed, it might be said that they were strangely happy
years. The household remained unchanged, except that there were three
more babies in Mike's cottage, and Hetty had been obliged to build on
another room for him. Old Nan and Caesar still reigned. Caesar's head was
as white and tight-curled as the fleece of a pet lamb. He was now a
shining light in the Methodist meeting; but he had not yet broken
himself of his oaths. "Damn--bress de Lord" was still heard on occasion:
but everybody, even Nan, had grown so used to it that it did not pass
for an oath; and, no doubt, even the recording angel had long since
ceased to put it down.

James Little and his wife were now as much a part of the family as if
they had had the old Squire's blood in their veins; and nobody thought
about the old time of their disgrace,--nobody but Jim and Sally
themselves. From their thoughts it was never absent, when they looked on
the beautiful, joyous face of Raby. He had grown beyond his years, and
looked like a boy of twelve. He was manly, frank, impulsive; a child
after Hetty's own heart, and much more like her than he was like his
father or his mother. It was a question, also, if he did not love her
more than he loved either of his parents: all his hours with her were
unclouded; over his intercourse with them, there always hung the
undefined cloud of an unexpressed sadness.

Hetty was changed. Her hair was gray; her fair skin weather-beaten; and
the fine wrinkles around the corners of her merry eyes radiated like the
spokes of a wheel. She had looked young at thirty-seven; she looked old
at forty-five. The phlegmatic and lazy sometimes seem to keep their
youth better than the sanguine and active. It is a cruel thing that
laughter should age a woman's face almost as much as weeping; but it
does. Sunny as Hetty's face was, it had come to have a look older than
it ought, simply because the kindly eyes had so often twinkled and half
closed in merry laughter.

Time had dealt more kindly with Doctor