in instructing the young female servants in knitting and sewing, and in
such household duties as would make them useful in that state of life in
which it had pleased God to place them. Her heart was full of love to all
God's creatures; the servants came to her with their little ailings and
grievances, and she had always a soothing remedy--some little specific for
a bodily sickness, with a word of advice and kindness, and, if the case
required it, of gentle reproof for complaints of another nature. Cousin
Janet was an old maid, yet many an orphan and friendless child had shed
tears upon her bosom; some, whose hands she had folded together in prayer
as they knelt beside her, learning from her lips a child's simple petition,
had long ago laid down to sleep for ever; some are living still, surrounded
by the halo of their good influence. There was one, of whom we shall speak
by-and-by, who was to her a source of great anxiety, and the constant
subject of her thoughts and fervent prayers.

Many years had gone by since she had accepted Mr. Weston's earnest entreaty
to make Exeter her home; and although the bread she eat was that of
charity, yet she brought a blessing upon the house that sheltered her, by
her presence: she was one of the chosen ones of the Lord. Even in this day,
it is possible to entertain an angel unawares. She is before you, reader,
in all the dignity of old age, of a long life drawing to a close; still to
the last, she works while it is yet day!

With her dove-colored dress, and her muslin three-cornered handkerchief,
pinned precisely at the waist and over her bosom, with her eyes sunken and
dim, but expressive, with the wrinkles so many and so deep, and the thin,
white folds of her satin-looking hair parted under her cap; with her silver
knitting-sheath attached to her side, and her needles in ever busy hands,
Cousin Janet would perhaps first arrest the attention of a stranger, in
spite of the glowing cheek and golden curls that were contrasting with her.