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"Oh, ma'am," said she to me one day, pointing to a bean she had trained over her kitchen window, "how can the human natur's heart help for to see how miraculous beans is!"

I did not ridicule Becky's sentimentalities, but found pleasure in moralizing over the progress of her bean vine, and even kept my countenance when, the morning after a frost, she assumed a pensive attitude, and said, “ah, Miss Packard, so frail is the human natur's life of a bean!"

I heard, however, a conversation between herself and Polly, as we were preparing for a guest at dinner, that completely excited my risibility.

"Who is coming here to day ?" said Polly. "A tutor from Cambridge," answered Becky. "What is a tutor?" asked Polly

"Mercy! child, don't you know?" said Becky, "why, a person that tutes!"

Becky's sentimentalism was not confined to her bean vine. She rarely took up the gridiron without a sigh over the remains of the beef and

poultry, and one would think from her looks she was about to bear the martyrdom of St. Lawrence on its well scraped parallels.

But the place where her mind was most under my inspection was the ironing-table, where, as Mr. Packard's shirts and cravats were my first care, I felt a feminine pride in smoothing their snowy texture.

Many were the experiences detailed by Becky as we gave the sheets a finishing snap in folding, or wielded our irons with the skill of artists.

And when on Tuesday evening every article was translated to its appropriate drawer, and Becky sat by the kitchen fire, at her pine table, with her mending, I have often heard her say,

"Polly, child, always regulate your concerns in the day, and then when you come to set by your taper (looking at the small tallow candle), you can have time to meditate on the human natur's heart."

Alas, for romance! Becky married my butcher, and became Mrs. Ichabod Whittemore!

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FIRST-BORN.

As mine own shadow was this child to me,
A second self, far dearer, and more fair.

SHELLEY.

THERE can be but few domestic trials, comparatively speaking, without children. In their absence, that combination of articles expressively designated clutter, seldom alarms the eagle-eyed housewife. From day to day, from week to week, from year to year, may she descend to the breakfast-table with her smooth morning dress, her well combed hair, and her face unwrinkled by nursing vigils.

Such was my happy predicament until Master Frederick Packard entered on the before tranquil scene, when forthwith appeared an accompanying train of vials, fennel-seed, and pap. He was blessed from the moment of his

birth with a pair of lungs that needed no Demosthenean pebbles to bring them into play. Two-thirds of the time his face was in lines as thick as the rivers on a well-drawn map, and his roaring brought kind inquiries from the neighbours "if any thing was the matter with the baby?" His father flattered himself that he was destined to make a noise in the world, and descanted long and loud (for we were obliged to speak at "the top of our voices") on the kindness of Providence in permitting infants to scream, since it was necessary to the healthy action of the lungs; he added, moreover, that all sensible children were cross, and that his mother had often said he was the most fretful Ichild in the world.

Polly, now thirteen years of age, succeeded the regular nurse in assisting me to attend my little boy, and if ever any one, with the kindest intentions, had a knack at making a child scream, it was she, notwithstanding my woman in the kitchen would occasionally put her head into the parlour door and call out, "Polly, Polly, why

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don't you shue the child?" but alas! Polly's sole ability lay in trotting and walking, walking and trotting, with all the energy of human muscles; her last resource, and it was often effectual, was to sit on a particularly hard chair, and rock backward and forward on an uncarpeted floor. At each jolt Master Frederick's voice grew fainter and fainter, until at length, overpowered by superior physical strength, he dropped asleep, and looked as if no storm had ever hung over his placid brow.

How beautiful is the sleep of infancy, with its breathing like the uplifting of lily leaves on a summer wave! It would be sculpture-like, did not the motion of the lips betray a sweet remembrance of its natural wants,

"As the shifting visions sweep,

Amid its innocent rest."

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