e said to Mrs. Van Buren, who was up at the
homestead for a few days, and who looked aghast at her sister's
proposition, that she should accompany her, and help her hunt up Ethie.

"Was Barbara crazy, that she thought of going to New York in this hot
weather, when the smallpox, and the dysentery, and the plague, and mercy
knew what was there? Besides that, how did Barbara intend to manage?
What was she going to do?"

Barbara hardly knew herself how she should manage, or what she should
do. "Providence would direct," she said, though to be sure she had an
idea. Ethie had written that she had found employment, and what was more
probable than to suppose that the employment was giving music lessons,
for which she was well qualified, or teaching in some gentleman's
family. Taking this as her basis, Aunt Barbara intended to inquire for
every governess and teacher in the city, besides watching every house
where such an appendage would be likely to be found. Still her great
hope was in the street and the Park. She should surely meet Ethie there
some day--at least she would try the effect of her plan; and she went
quietly on with her preparations, while Mrs. Van Buren tried to dissuade
her from a scheme which seemed so foolish and utterly impracticable.

"Suppose Ethie was a governess, the family most likely would be out of
town at that season; and what good would it do for Aunt Barbara to risk
her life and health in the crowded city?"

This view of the matter was rather dampening to Aunt Barbara's zeal; but
trusting that Providence would interfere in her behalf, she still
insisted that she should go, and again expressed a wish that Sophia
would go with her. "It would not be so lonesome, and would look better,
too," she said, "while you know more of city ways than I do, and would
not get imposed upon."

Mrs. Van Buren could go far beyond her sister in abusing Richard, but
when it came to a sacrifice of her own comfort and pleasure, she held
back. Nothing could induce her to go to New York. She preferred the cool
seaside, where she was to join a party of Boston elite. Her dresses were
made, her room engaged, and she must go, she said, urging that Nettie's
health required the change--Nettie, who had given to her husband a
sickly, puny child, which lived just long enough to warrant a grand
funeral, and then was laid to rest under the shadow of the Van Buren
monument, out in pleasant Mount Auburn.

So Mrs. Van Buren went back