nt to be married until the spring; but she and the
cabinet-maker had had their eyes upon a certain half-house,--neat
and pretty, with clean brown paint and a little enticing gingerbread
work about the eaves and porch,--which was to be vacated at that
time; and it happened that, through some unforeseen circumstances,
the family occupying it became suddenly desirous to get rid of the
remainder of their lease, and move this winter. John came to Sabina
eagerly one evening with the news.

Sabina thought of the long winter evenings, and the bright
double-burner kerosene she had saved up money for; of a little round
table with a red cloth, and John one side of it and she the other;
of sitting together in a pew, and going every Sunday in her
bride-bonnet, instead of getting her every-other-Sunday forenoon and
hurrying home to fricassee Mrs. Argenter's chicken or sweet-bread,
and boil her cauliflower; and so she gave warning the next morning
when she was emptying Mrs. Argenter's bath and picking up the
towels. She steeled herself wisely with choice of time and person;
it would have been hard to tell Miss Sylvie when she came down to
dust the parlor, or into the kitchen to make the little dessert for
dinner.

And now poor Sylvie fell into and floundered in that slough of
despond, the lower stratum of the Irish kitchen element, which if
one once meddles with, it is almost hopeless to get out of; and one
very soon finds that to get out of it is the only hope, forlorn as
it may be.

She had one girl who made sour bread for a fortnight, and then
flounced off on a Monday morning, leaving the clothes in the tubs,
because "her bread was never faulted before, an' faith, she wudn't
pit up biscuits of a Sunday night no more for annybody!" The next
one disposed of all the dish towels in four days, behind barrels and
in the corners of the kettle closet, and complained insolently of
ill furnishing; a third kindled her fire with the clothes-pins; a
fourth wore Mrs. Argenter's cambric skirts on Sunday, "for a finish,
jist to make 'em worth while for the washin'," and trod out the
heels of three pairs of Sylvie's best stockings, for a like
considerate and economical reason. Another declined peremptorily the
use of a flat-iron stand, and burnt out triangular pieces from the
ironing sheet and blanket; and when Sylvie remonstrated with her
about the skirt-board, which she had newly covered, finding her
using it as a cleaning cloth after she ha