her child. My aunt Fanny would fain have persuaded her that she had
enough to do in managing their cottage and minding Gregory; but my mother
knew that they were pinched, and that aunt Fanny herself had not as much
to eat, even of the commonest kind of food, as she could have done with;
and as for Gregory, he was not a strong lad, and needed, not more
food--for he always had enough, whoever went short--but better
nourishment, and more flesh-meat. One day--it was aunt Fanny who told me
all this about my poor mother, long after her death--as the sisters were
sitting together, aunt Fanny working, and my mother hushing Gregory to
sleep, William Preston, who was afterwards my father, came in. He was
reckoned an old bachelor; I suppose he was long past forty, and he was
one of the wealthiest farmers thereabouts, and had known my grandfather
well, and my mother and my aunt in their more prosperous days. He sat
down, and began to twirl his hat by way of being agreeable; my aunt Fanny
talked, and he listened and looked at my mother. But he said very
little, either on that visit, or on many another that he paid before he
spoke out what had been the real purpose of his calling so often all
along, and from the very first time he came to their house. One Sunday,
however, my aunt Fanny stayed away from church, and took care of the
child, and my mother went alone. When she came back, she ran straight
upstairs, without going into the kitchen to look at Gregory or speak any
word to her sister, and aunt Fanny heard her cry as if her heart was
breaking; so she went up and scolded her right well through the bolted
door, till at last she got her to open it. And then she threw herself on
my aunt's neck, and told her that William Preston had asked her to marry
him, and had promised to take good charge of her boy, and to let him want
for nothing, neither in the way of keep nor of education, and that she
had consented. Aunt Fanny was a good deal shocked at this; for, as I
have said, she had often thought that my mother had forgotten her first
husband very quickly, and now here was proof positive of it, if she could