a high regard for her opinion, and was often willing to trust matters to her judgment as being superior to his own.  As they were all busy in various ways, Grandma motioned me to take a seat by her side, and read to her, saying in an undertone, she had had no good reading while I was away, for Nathan reads too fast, and the Widow Green speaks through her nose, “and you don’t know how much I have missed your clear voice and plain pronunciation.”  “What shall I read Grandma,” said I, as I turned the leaves of the large Bible.  “Oh, first read my favourite psalm which you know is the thirty-seventh, and then read from St. John’s Gospel.”  For an hour she seemed filled with quiet enjoyment while I read, till, becoming tired, she said “that will do for this time, Walter, for you must be tired after your journey.”  The few days which remained of the week after our return were busy ones; school was to open on the following Monday and there were many matters requiring attention.  The painting of the house was begun in due time, and Uncle Nathan thought “Lucinda was going a little too far” when she first proposed adorning the house which, instead of a dingy red, was now a pure white, with green blinds, but she soon (as she said) talked him over to her side, and the first time Deacon Martin’s wife passed the homestead after the improvements were completed, she remarked to a friend, that she almost felt it her duty, to call and ask Uncle Nathan if he were not evincing too much love of display, by expending so much money on mere outward adornings.  Somehow or other it came to Aunt Lucinda’s ears that the good Deacon’s wife thought they had better give their money to the cause of, “Foreign Missions” than spend it in so needless a manner.  My uncle’s family did give liberally when called upon, in this way, and, more than this, they were not inclined to make remarks upon the short-comings of others; but, upon this occasion my aunt replied with much warmth:  “If the Deacon’s wife has any thing to say to me upon the subject let her come and say it, the sooner the better, and I’ll ask her if she remembers the year I was appointed as one of the collectors for the Foreign Missionary Society, and when I called upon her, after she had complained for some time of hard times and the numerous calls for money, put down her name for twenty-five cents, and did not even pay that down, and I had to go a second time for it; if she knows what’s for the best she won’t give herself any further trouble as to how we spend our money.”  On the whole I presume it was all the better that the Deacon’s wife never called to censure Aunt Lucinda for extravagance in spending money.

CHAPTER XIX.