I burst into a laugh, and they both joined me in it, from surprise. It
is not often I call upon them for that kind of sympathy. It is generally
in sighs and groans that I ask them--most unwillingly, I am sure--to
participate.

Kate wrote, some time ago, to our dear little Alice, begging her to join
us in the Green Mountains, for it makes us both unhappy to think of that
pretty child under iron rule; but her aunt refused to let her come to
us.


VI.

C---- Springs. July.

I am here established, drinking the waters and breathing the mountain
air, but not gaining any marvellous benefit from either of them. When I
repine in Ben's hearing, he sighs deeply, and advises me "to heed the
auld-warld proverb, and 'tak' things by their smooth handle, sin'
there's nae use in grippin' at thorns." Kate, too, reproves me for
hindering my recovery by fretting at its tardiness. She tries to comfort
me, by saying that I ought to be thankful, that, instead of being
obliged to waste my youth in "horrid business," I can lie here observing
and enjoying the beautiful world. Thereupon I overwhelm her with
quotations:--"The horse must be road-worn and world-worn, that he may
thoroughly enjoy his drowsy repose in the sun, where he winks in sleepy
satisfaction";--and Carlyle: "Teufelsdröckh's whole duty and necessity
was, like other men's, to work in the right direction, and no work was
to be had; whereby he became wretched enough";--and, "Blessed is he who