Formerly Mary rose thoughtful, with the pressure of business on her
brain. At meals she was abstracted, often worried, and at all times the
repository of domestic troubles. Her healthy organization was altogether
too mesmerized by the petty warfare below stairs. She was never idle,
and yet rarely accomplished anything for _herself_. Her position in the
household might have been called that of GRAND FINISHER. She planned
work and waited for its completion in vain. Finally she would bring it
into the library and stitch--stitch--all through the pleasant evenings.
I knew this, for I laid a plan. One April I asked her to work me a pair
of slippers on cloth. I presume a clever woman, undisturbed, could have
delivered them over to me at the end of the week. Now, no one is more
clever than my sister; yet I did not get those slippers till December;
and then she handed them to me in sadness, and said, with an attempt at
cheerfulness, 'dear William, I worked one myself, but my duties are such
that I gave out the other to that poor woman whose husband is at sea.
Has'nt she done it well?' Now, I find her reading, paying visits, and
often of an evening she comes to me and says, 'William, would'nt you
like some new handkerchiefs embroidered?' or 'can't I mend anything for
you? I have just finished my music and have nothing to do.'

On another occasion, while she was mending--not making reader--but
_mending_, her children's clothes, I offered to read one of Ik Marvel's
reveries of a bachelor, a special favorite of mine. She thanked me, and I
proceeded. On finishing one of his admirable paragraphs, I put the book
down and exclaimed, 'isn't that capital?'

She said at once, 'no, I think it is very discouraging.'

'Discouraging! Why, what in the world do you mean, Mary?'