in't horses to hold every day," said Rachel, apparently fearing
that the family might become too cheerful, when, like herself, it was
their duty to be profoundly gloomy.

"You're always tryin' to discourage people, Aunt Rachel," said Jack,
discontentedly.

Rachel took instant umbrage at these words.

"I'm sure," said she, mournfully, "I don't want to make you unhappy. If
you can find anything to be cheerful about when you're on the verge of
starvation, I hope you'll enjoy yourselves, and not mind me. I'm a poor,
dependent creetur, and I feel I'm a burden."

"Now, Rachel, that's all foolishness," said Timothy. "You don't feel
anything of the kind."

"Perhaps others can tell how I feel better than I can myself," answered
his sister, with the air of a martyr. "If it hadn't been for me, I know
you'd have been able to lay up money, and have something to carry you
through the winter. It's hard to be a burden on your relations, and
bring a brother's family to this poverty."

"Don't talk of being a burden, Rachel," said Mrs. Harding. "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. There is some folks that can be cheerful when their house is
a-burnin' down before their eyes, and I've heard of one young man that
laughed at his aunt's funeral," directing a severe glance at Jack; "but
I'm not one of that kind. I think, with the Scriptures, that there's a
time to weep."

"Doesn't it say there's a time to laugh, too?" asked Mrs. Harding.

"When I see anything to laugh about, I'm rea