Cousin Maude

in the rear. In all the town there was not so delightful a location, for it commanded a view of the country for many miles around, while fr

so met together as to form a beautiful arch over the graveled walk which lead to the front door. It was, indeed, a pleasant

d around in vain for her favorites, thinking the while how her first work should b

the man for putting it there! It was a maxim of the doctor's never to have anything not strictly for use, consequently his house, both outside and in, was destitute of every kind of ornament; and the bride, as she followed him through the empty hall into the silent parlor, whose bare walls, faded carpet, and uncurtained windows seemed

t beneath his black exterior there beat a kind and sympat

ctor. "Call Nellie, John, and

nt was her complexion and so regular her features. She was naturally affectionate and amiable, too, when suffered to have her own way. Neither was she at all inclined to be timid, and when her father, taking her hand in his, bade her speak to her new mother, she went unhesitatingly to the lady, and climbing into her lap, sat there very quietly so long as Mrs. Kennedy permitted her to play with her rings, pull her collar, and take out her side-combs, for

What makes you look at me so funny?" she answered, "Because you are so pretty." This made a place for her at once in the h

nedy said to her husband, "You

scratch upon his hand; but as his wife knew nothing of said scratch, the rebuke was wholly lost, and he continued: "I was anxious that she should be a boy, for it is a maxim of mine that the oldest child in every family ought to be a son, and so I said, repeatedly, to the late Mrs. Kennedy, who, though a most excellent woman in most matters,

a hurried conversation, the former inquiring

ght quicker'n he did t'other one; 'case you see she haint so much-what you call him-so much go off to her as Miss Katy had, and she can't bar his grinding ways. They'll scrush her to onct-see if

ad been quite indignant at the thoughts of anoth

and well she might, for she aint half as white, and as Master Kennedy

very prepossessing, and Mrs. Kennedy intuitively felt that 'twould be long before her former domestic's place was made good by the indolent African. It is true her obeisance was very low, and her greeting kindly enough, but

at her heart; a feeling which whispered to her that the home to which she had come was not like that which she had left. Dinner being over, she asked permission to retire to her chamber, saying she needed rest, and should feel better aft

always managed to keep her, for, on the whole, she liked her place, and did not care to change it for one where her task would be much harder. But if the new wife proved to be sickly, matters would be different, and so she fretted,

ut upon the lake and the blue hills beyond. A clean white towel concealed the marred condition of the washstand, while the bed, which was made up high and round, especially in the middle, looked very inviting with its snowy spread. A large stuffed rocking chair, more comfortable than handsome, occup

, "We haint any flowers. Pa won't let John plant any. He told Aunt Kelsey the lan

painful suspicion fastening itself upon he

n Rochester, in a great big house, with the handsomest things

wept bitterly, half wishing she had never come to Laurel Hill, but was still at home in her own pleasant cottage. Then hope whispered to her of a brighter day, when things would not seem to her as they now did. She would fix up the desolate old house, she thought; the bare windows which now so stared her i

red with tears. She and Nellie had quarreled-nay, actually fought; Nellie telling Maude she was blacker than a nigger, and pushing her into the brook, while Maude, in return, had pulled out a handful of the yo

the stairs announced the approach of Dr. Kennedy. Not a word did he say of his late adventure with Maude, and his manner was very kind toward his weary wi

grity and wealth, suggested Matty Remington, he too thought favorably of the matter, and yielding to the fascination of her soft blue eyes he had won her for his wife, pitying her, it may be, as he sat by her in the gathering twilight, and half guessed that she was homesick. And when he saw how confidingly she

ose brown hair had turned gray, and whose blue eyes had waxed dim beneath the withering influence of him she called her husband. She was dead, and when they saw the young, light-hearted Matty, they did not understand how she could ever have been induced to take that woman's place and wed a man of thirty-eight, and they blamed her somewhat, until t

led to appropriate to himself the easy chair which she had bought for the sitting room, and which when she was tired rested her so much. On the subject

te of furniture, and when her marble table stood between the windows, with a fresh bouquet of flowers which John had brought, he e

ntly as possible the fact that she was not to come, but saying nothing definite concerning her

ent to live with Mr. Blodgett, who peddles milk, and raises butter and cheese, and who

ers, occupying in all three pages of foolscap, to whic

g I wanted to tell the most. We are married, me and Joel, and I

industrious the late Mrs. Kennedy had been, and hinted that a true woman was not above kitchen work. The consequence of this was that Matty, who really wished to please him, became in time a very drudge, doing things which she once thought she could not do, and then without a murmur ministering to her exacting husband when he came home from visiting a patient, and declared himself

e," seemed to be his motto, and when at church the plate was passed to him he gave his dime a loving pinch ere parting company with it; and yet none read the service louder or defended his favorite liturgy more zealously than himself. In some things he was a pattern man, and when once his servant John announced his intention

larnt me how to read a little. After I'd arn't a heap of money for Marster Kennedy he wanted to go to the Legislatur', and as some on 'em wouldn't vote for him while he owned a nigger, he set me free, and sent for

dy, a suspicion of the reason why J

r, who got beat 'lection day, threatened to send me back, but I knew he couldn't do it, and so he agreed to

ith the church," suggested Mr

; so when mother, who allus was a-roarin' Methodis', asked me to go wid her to meetin', I went, and was never so mortified in my life, for arter the elder had 'xorted a spell at the top of his voice, he sot down and said there was room for others. I couldn't see how that was, bein' he took up the whole ch

?" asked Mrs. Kennedy, convulsed with

ceived, for I'd never seen such work before. But I've got so I like it now, and I believe thar's more 'sistency down in that schoolhouse than thar is in-I won't say the 'Piscop

to Janet, Mrs. Kennedy felt that the loss of her former servant was in a great measure made up to her in the kind negro, who, as the months went by and her face grew thinner each day, purchased with his own money many a little delicacy which he hoped would tempt her capricious appetite. Maude, too, w

im sometimes to address her, he called her first, "You girl," then "Mat," and finally arrived at "Maude," speaking it always spitefully, as if provoked that he had once in his life been conquered. With the management of her he seldom interfered, for that scratch

, being the stronger of the two, always came off victor; but these did not last long, and had her husband been to her what he ought Mrs. Kennedy's life would not have been as dreary as it was. He meant well enough, perhaps, but