All my abominable selfishness that I thought I had left at my
Master's feet ten minutes before now came trooping back in full
force.

"She's going to be married; she'll go away, and will take her father
to live with her! I can have room for my children, and room for
mother! Every element of discord will now leave my home, and Ernest
will see what I really am!"

These were the thoughts that rushed through my mind, and that
illuminated my face.

"Does Ernest know?" I asked.

"Yes, Ernest has known it for some weeks."

Then I felt injured and inwardly accused Ernest of unkindness in
keeping so important a fact a secret. But when I went back to my
children, vexation with him took flight at once. The coming of each
new child strengthens and deepens my desire to be what I would have
it become; makes my faults more odious in my eyes, and elevates my
whole character. What a blessed discipline of joy and of pain my
married life has been; how thankful I am to reap its fruits even
while pricked by its thorns!

JUNE 21.-It seems that the happy man who has wooed Martha and won her
is no less a personage than old Mr. Underhill. His ideal of a woman
is one who has no nerves, no sentiment, no backaches, no headaches,
who will see that the wheels of his household machinery are kept well
oiled, so that he need never hear them creak, and who, in addition to