“Well, well!  Mary is a dear girl, why should she not think of marrying?” replied her husband; “she is nineteen.  Quite time, I think, she should learn housekeeping—­something every young girl should know.  We should hear of fewer divorces and a less number of failures of men in business, had their wives been trained before marriage to be good, thrifty, economical housekeepers and, still more important, good homemakers.  To be a helpmate in every sense of the word is every woman’s duty, I think, when her husband works early and late to procure the means to provide for her comforts and luxuries and a competency for old age.  Write Mary to come at once, and under your teaching she may, in time, become as capable a housekeeper and as good a cook as her Aunt Sarah; and, to my way of thinking, there is none better, my dear.”

Praise from her usually reticent husband never failed to deepen the tint of pink on Aunt Sarah’s still smooth, unwrinkled, youthful looking face, made more charming by being framed in waves of silvery gray hair, on which the “Hand of Time,” in passing, had sprinkled some of the dust from the road of life.

In size, Sarah Landis was a little below medium height, rather stout, or should I say comfortable, and matronly looking; very erect for a woman of her age.  Her bright, expressive, gray eyes twinkled humorously when she talked.  She had developed a fine character by her years of unselfish devotion to family and friends.  Her splendid sense of humor helped her to overcome difficulties, and her ability to rise above her environment, however discouraging their conditions, prevented her from being unhappy or depressed by the small annoyances met daily.  She never failed to find joy and pleasure in the faithful performance of daily tasks, however small or insignificant.  Aunt Sarah attributed her remarkably fine, clear complexion, seldom equalled in a woman of her years, to good digestion and excellent health; her love of fresh air, fruit and clear spring water.  She usually drank from four to five tumblerfuls of water a day.  She never ate to excess, and frequently remarked:  “I think more people suffer from over-eating than from insufficient food.”  An advocate of deep breathing, she spent as much of her time as she could spare from household duties in the open air.

[Illustration:  Aunt Sarah]

Sarah Landis was not what one would call beautiful, but good and whole-souled looking.  To quote her husband:  “To me Sarah never looks so sweet and homelike when all ‘fussed up’ in her best black dress on special occasions, as she does when engaged in daily household tasks around home, in her plain, neat, gray calico dress.”

This dress was always covered with a large, spotlessly clean, blue gingham apron of small broken check, and she was very particular about having a certain-sized check.  The apron had a patch pocket, which usually contained small twists or little wads of cord, which, like “The Old Ladies in Cranford,” she picked up and saved for a possible emergency.