“I heard only a few days before I left; one of the girls came down, and she said Peter was well, but oh, how they miss their own mother!  Peter’s first wife was the best mother I ever knew; those little girls looked as neat as pins, with their blue and iron-rust dresses, and she taught them to do so much—­not half do it, but to finish what they began.  I think of her with reverence, for her ways were in accordance with her ideas of duty, and she was no ordinary woman.  It seems too bad she could not have lived.”

And Aunt Phebe sighed, and then added: 

“You ask what makes me work?  Work has been my salvation.  In the needs of others I have forgotten my own terrible experiences, and although the first time I washed a bedquilt I said ’I can never do that thing again,’ I have since then washed many; and done also the thousand kinds of work that only a woman can do.  Force of circumstances has made me self-reliant, and so long as I can work I am not lonely, and if there comes a day when the labor of my hands is less needed, I shall be only too glad to take the time for reading I so much desire.”

“Oh, Phebe!” said my mother, “I often think of you as you were when young; slender and lithe as a willow, with a cheek where the rose’s strength did not often gather; and then I think of all you have done since, and looking at you to-day, you seem to me a perfect marvel; for you have lived, and borne hard work and sorrow, and your face is fresh, your fingers taper as of old, and on your cheek is the tinge of pink that becomes you so well.  You are only five years younger than I, and you look every day of twenty; you may outlive me—­yes, I’m sure you will.”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Aunt Phebe said: 

“Speaking of work makes me think to tell you about an old colored man who came to my door last winter.  He was so cold he could hardly talk, but seeing some coal before the door wanted to put it in for me.  I asked him in, and he grew warmer after a little.  I made a cup of hot composition tea for him, and while he was putting in the coal hunted up an old coat that one of our neighbors had given me for carpet rags, and when the poor old man told me his story I felt like proclaiming it to the city.  Never mind that now.  He lived through the winter and did not freeze, and last summer found considerable work, but I have thought for some time how valuable his help would be to William, my father, and I wonder if he could find a place to live in here among you.  His name is Matthias Jones, and he is faithful though slow, but the constant dropping, you know, wears a stone.  I like the old man, and you would, for he is honest and ambitious.  He might have owned a farm himself if the evil of slavery had not crushed under its foot the seeds of growth that lay within him.  Mr. Dutton has helped to get him work.”

“Phebe,” said mother, interrupting her, “are you going to marry that Mr. Dutton?”