gait,
make her appear to many, ungainly; she is ruddy as a rareripe peach,
and smiles from her forehead and eyes, and face and mouth.

But a feeling of sadness agitates our heart as we glance at Julia's
history. Orphanage presents, in the brightest relief, one of the
saddest sights that our weeping eyes behold; and hers was especially
sad. Her father, mother and two sisters were all carried off to the
grave in the space of one week, which she was spending abroad with a
poor relative; and she was left without the comfort of a parting word
or kiss, and cast upon the world at a tender and almost helpless age,
with no provision for her welfare. Her poor sobbing heart came well
nigh breaking, and though her pitiful condition, and her sweet and
attracting manners, ensured her much sympathy, and many friends; yet
none could think to offer her a home, and take the place of her family,
but the Masons, of whom we speak. They took her home at last, and gave
her shelter from the storms. They engaged to rear her to womanhood,
and shield her from harm and need. They were always kind to her, and
she never received a harsh word or look from them. They cultured her
fine sense, and gave her a knowledge of books and things. They trained
her against deceptions. They gave her entire person, the reason, the
will, affections and form, as finished an education, as one often found
at that day among intelligent farmers.

And yet they did not do right by Julia. She was large of her age, and
all the more tender for being large; and they tasked her too severely,
and exacted too much of her. She performed boy's work too often; she
was dropping potatoes or pulling weeds, or spreading hay in the field,
when she ought to have been sewing or doing house-work; she milked too
many cows; she carried too many pails of sap in the sugar bush; she
gleaned too much wheat; she sewed on hard sewing too long at a time;
she spun too much wool and flax, and turned too many cheeses. The
consequence was, that while she retained much of a superabundant
cheerfulness, she was stoop-shouldered, and looked narrow over the
chest; her form was less elastic, and her hands were hard and homely.

But if Matthew Fabens had searched the wide world over, he would not
have found a better bride than she. He had known her from a child, and
could well appreciate her intelligence and worth. He chose her in a
love, whose affiance was sanctioned in heaven; and after three