ms as if nought would ever stay
done. If one makes a new gown, 'tis but that it may be worn out, and
then shall another be wanted. I would the world could give o'er going
on, and every thing getting worn out and done with.

Other folks do not seem to feel thus. I reckon _Helen_ never does, not
one bit. Some be so much easier satisfied than other. I count them the
happiest.

I cannot tell how it is, but I do never feel satisfied. 'Tis as though
there were wings within me, that must ever of their nature be stretching
upward and onward. Where should they end, an' they might go forward?
Would there be any end? Can one be satisfied, ever?

I believe _Anstace_ and _Helen_ are satisfied, but then 'tis their
nature to be content with things as they be. I do not know about
_Mother_ and Aunt _Joyce_. I misdoubt if it be altogether their nature.
But then neither do they seem always satisfied. _Father_ doth so: and
his nature is high enough. I think I shall ask _Father_. As for Cousin
_Bess_, an' I were to ask at her, she should conceive me never a whit.
'Tis her nature to cook and darn and scour, and to look complacently on
her cake and her mended hole and her cleaned chamber, and never trouble
herself to think that they shall lack doing o'er again to-morrow.
Chambers are like to need cleansing, and what were women made for save
to keep them clean? That is Cousin _Bess_, right out. For Master
_Stuyvesant_, methinks he is right the other way, and rather counts the
world a dirty place and full of holes, that there shall be no good in
neither cleansing nor mending. And I look not on matters in that light.
Methinks it were better to cleanse the chamber, if only one could keep
it from being dirtied at after. I shall see what _Father_ saith.

SELWICK HALL, DECEMBER THE XII.
Yester even, as we were sat in the great chamber,--there was _Mother_
and _Helen_ at their wheels, and Aunt _Joyce_ and my Lady _Stafford_
a-sewing, and Mistress _Martin_ and _Milisent_ and me at the broidery,--
and _Father_ had but just beat Sir _Robert_ in a game of the chess, and
_Mynheer_, one foot upon his other knee, was deep in a great book which
thereon rested,--and fresh logs were thrown of the fire by _Kate_, which
sent forth upward a shower of pleasant sparkles, and methought as I
glanced around the chamber, that all looked rare pleasant and
comfortable, and we ought to thank God therefore. When