hard of feature, and of speech, as hundreds of New-England women are.  Their lives are hard, their husbands are harder and stonier than the fields they half-reclaim to raise their daily bread from, their existence is labor and endurance; no grace, no beauty, no soft leisure or tender caress mitigates the life that wears itself away on wash-tubs, cheese-presses, churns, cooking-stoves, and poultry; but truth and strength and purity lie clear in these rocky basins, and love lurks like a jewel at the bottom,—­visible only when some divine sun-ray lights it up,—­love as true and deep and healthy as it is silent and unknown.

So Miss ’Viny’s hardness gave way before “baby.”  She could not feel unmoved the tiny groping hands about her in the night, the soft beatings of the little heart against her arm, the round downy head that would nestle on her neck to be rocked asleep; she could not resist that exquisite delight of miserable, exacting, feminine nature,—­the knowledge that one thing in the world loved her better than anybody else.  Sorry am I to betray this weakness of Aunt ’Viny’s,—­sorry to know how many strong-minded, intellectual, highly educated and refined women will object to this mean and jealous sentiment in a woman of like passions with themselves.  I know, myself, that a lofty love will regard the good of the beloved object first, and itself last,—­that jealousy is a paltry and sinful emotion; but, my dear creatures, I can’t help it,—­so it was.  And if any one of you can, with a serene countenance and calm mind, see your husband devote himself to a much prettier, more agreeable, younger woman than yourself,—­or hear your own baby scream to go from you to somebody else,—­or even behold your precious female friend, your “congenial soul,” as the Rosa Matilda literature hath it, fascinated by a young woman or young man to the neglect of yourself,—­although in one and all of these instances the beloved object seeks his or her best good,—­then let that superhuman female throw a stone at Aunt ’Viny;—­but for the present she will not be lapidated.

Never, indeed, had she been quite as happy as now.  Her life had been a routine of hard work.  Love and marriage had never looked over the palings at her; and—­to tell the truth—­she had not suffered by their neglect, in her own estimation.  She was one of those supernumerary women who are meant to do other people’s work in life:  servants, nurses, consolers; accepting their part with unconscious humility as a matter of course; quite as good as the Santas and Santissimas of legend and chronicle, and not nearly so intrusive.  So this new phase had its own sweetness and special charm for Aunt ’Viny; the happiest hour in her day lying between daylight and dark, when waistcoats and jackets and trousers were laid aside, the dim light forbidding her to sew, and economy delaying the lamp,—­so she could with a clear conscience spare half an hour, while the tea-kettle boiled, for undressing “baby,”