During the whole of one of last summer's hottest days I had the good
fortune to be seated in a railway car near a mother and four children,
whose relations with each other were so beautiful that the pleasure of
watching them was quite enough to make one forget the discomforts of the
journey.

It was plain that they were poor; their clothes were coarse and old, and
had been made by inexperienced hands. The mother's bonnet alone would have
been enough to have condemned the whole party on any of the world's
thoroughfares. I remembered afterward, with shame, that I myself had
smiled at the first sight of its antiquated ugliness; but her face was one
which it gave you a sense of rest to look upon,--it was so earnest,
tender, true, and strong. It had little comeliness of shape or color in
it, it was thin, and pale; she was not young; she had worked hard; she had
evidently been much ill; but I have seen few faces which gave me such
pleasure. I think that she was the wife of a poor clergyman; and I think
that clergyman must be one of the Lord's best watchmen of souls. The
children--two boys and two girls--were all under the age of twelve, and
the youngest could not speak plainly. They had had a rare treat; they had
been visiting the mountains, and they were talking over all the wonders
they had seen with a glow of enthusiastic delight which was to be envied.
Only a word-for-word record would do justice to their conversation; no
description could give any idea of it,--so free, so pleasant, so genial,
no interruptions, no contradictions; and the mother's part borne all the
while with such equal interest and eagerness that no one not seeing her
face would dream that she was any other than an elder sister. In the
course of the day there were many occasions when it was necessary for her
to deny requests, and to ask services, especially from the eldest boy; but