the heavy pots of water, and then
watched him cross the chip-yard to the barn. How bent and old he looked.
Did he ever repent of his step? she wondered. Life could not be much to
him any more than it was to her, and he had known her mother! Oh! why
could he not have waited? She would soon have been old enough to keep
house for him.

The minister had spoken the day before of a heaven where people were,
presumably, to find their height of enjoyment in an eternity of rest.
She supposed that was the best of it. Old Mrs Goodenough was always
sighing for rest, and Deacon Croaker prayed every week to be set free
from the trials and tribulations of this present evil world, and brought
into everlasting peace. An endless passivity seemed a dreary outlook to
her active soul, which was sighing to plume its cramped wings, and soar
among the endless possibilities of earth: it seemed strange that there
should be no wonders to explore in heaven. Well, death was sure, anyway,
and after all there was nothing in life--her life--but hard work, an
ever-recurring round of the same thing. She thought she could have stood
it better if there had been variety. Death was sure to come, sometime,
but people lived to be eighty, and she was so very young. Still,
perhaps monotony might prove as fatal as heart failure. She thought it
would with her--she was so terribly tired. Ever since she could remember
she had looked out of this same window as the sun rose, and wondered if
something would happen to her as it did to other girls, but the day went
past in the same dull routine. So many plates to wash, and the darning
basket seemed to grow larger each year, and the babies were so heavy.
She had read somewhere that 'all earnest, pure, unselfish men who lived
their lives well, helped to form the hero--God let none of them be
wasted. A thousand unrecorded patriots helped to make Wellington.' It
seemed to her Wellington had the best of it.

'Help me git dressed, P'liney,' demanded Lemuel, her youngest
step-brother, from his trundle bed. 'You're loiterin'. Why ain't you
down helping mar? Mar'll be awful cross with you. She always is wash
days. Hi! you'll git it!' and he endeavoured to suspend himself from a
chair by his braces.

'Come and get your face washed, Lemuel. Now don't wiggle. You know
you've got to say your prayers before you can go down.'

'Can't be bovvered,' retorted that worthy, as he squirmed into his
jacket like an eel, and darted past he