m what we could do; but what a paltry, heart-sickening
achievement! Now, good Mr. Crowfield, thou friend of the robbed
and despairing, wilt thou not descend into our purgatorial circle,
and tell the world what thou hast seen there of doleful
remembrance? Tell us how we, who must do and desire to do our own
work, can show forth in our homes a homely yet genial hospitality,
and entertain our guests without making a fuss and hurlyburly, and
seeming to be anxious for their sake about many things, and
spending too much time getting meals, as if eating were the chief
social pleasure. Won't you do this, Mr. Crowfield?

"Yours beseechingly,

"R. H. A."

"That's a good letter," said Jenny.

"To be sure it is," said I.

"And shall you answer it, papa?"

"In the very next 'Atlantic,' you may be sure I shall. The class that
do their own work are the strongest, the most numerous, and, taking
one thing with another, quite as well cultivated a class as any other.
They are the anomaly of our country,--the distinctive feature of the
new society that we are building up here; and, if we are to accomplish
our national destiny, that class must increase rather than diminish. I
shall certainly do my best to answer the very sensible and pregnant
questions of that letter."

Here Marianne shivered and drew up a shawl, and Jenny gaped; my wife
folded up the garment in which she had set the last stitch, and the
clock struck twelve.

Bob gave a low whistle. "Who knew it was so late?"

"We have talked the fire fairly out," said Jenny.

VI

THE LADY WHO DOES HER OWN WORK

"My dear Chris," said my wife, "isn't it time to be writing the next
'House and Home Paper'?"

I was lying back in my study-chair, with my heels luxuriously propped
on an ottoman, reading for the two-hundredth time Hawthorne's "Mosses
from an Old Manse," or his "Twice-Told Tales," I forget which,--I only
know that these books constitute my cloud-land, where I love to sail
away in dreamy quietude, forgetting the war, the price of coal and
flour, the rates of exchange, and the rise and fall of gold. What do
all these things matter, as seen from those enchanted gardens in Padua
where the weird Rappaccini tends his enchanted plants, and his
gorgeous daughter fills us with the light and magic of her presence,
and saddens us with the shadowy allegoric mystery of her preternatural
destiny? But my wife represents the positive forces of time, p