s" without salt?

When all was safely over, and my uncle came to take his family home,
there seemed to have been added a new tie of affection by this recent
intimacy, and it was agreed that my uncle's eldest son, a year or two
older than myself, should remain, and for one year recite to my father,
and that I should spend that time in my uncle's family, and become the
companion of a cousin three years younger, who never had a sister.

I have often wished that such exchanges might be more frequently made by
brothers and sisters and intimate friends. It is certainly a cheap and
admirable method of securing to each child those kind and faithful
attentions which money will not always command. I needed the polish of
city life--the freedom and the restraints imposed in well-disciplined
schools, where personal graces and accomplishments were considered
matters of importance as well as furniture for the mind; while my cousin
would be benefited in body and mind by such country rambles, such
fishing and hunting excursions, such feats of ball-playing, as "city
folks" know but little about. Some fears were expressed lest this boy
should lose something by forsaking his well-organized school, and fall
behind his classmates. But I have heard that cousin say, as to literary
attainments, this year was but the beginning of any high intellectual
attainments; for till now he had never learned how to study so that
intellectual culture became agreeable to him. And what was gratifying,
it was found on his return home that he was far in advance of his
classmates. So needful is it often to have the body invigorated, and
the mind should receive a right bias, and that such kind of stimulants
be applied as my father was able to give to the wakeful, active mind, of
his aspiring nephew.

Many times after my return home did my mother bless "sister N----" for
the many useful things she had taught me. My highest ambition had been
to iron my uncle's large fine white cravats, which, being cut bias, was
no easy attainment for a child.

I cannot well describe my astonishment and grief of heart, on being
installed in my new and otherwise happy, delightful home, to find
wanting a _family altar_. I had indeed the comfort of knowing that in my
own distant home the "absent child" was never for once forgotten, when
the dear circle gathered for family worship.

So certain was the belief which my parents entertained that an
indispensable portion was to be obta