532 The Wife for Me. [December, 



neat and pretty servant — a model of a ' telp.' Altogether, he 

 thought it was a charming family. When they sat at the cheerful 

 supper, and he tasted the light, home-made bread, and the sweet, 

 fresh butter, and the thinly sliced home-cured beef, the hot, well- 

 flavored tea, the excellency and good taste manifested in the whole 

 ordering, he felicitated himself upon having found so pleasant a 

 home, even if it was for a few days. After the supper was over, and 

 the table was cleared, a third young lady, very neatly dressed, enter- 

 ed the room, and was formally introduced to him as one of the sis- 

 ters. Miss Sarah. He was not a little surprised to find that the neat 

 servant girl, whose handiwork had won his admiration, was one of 

 the sisters. He found her sprightly, cheerful and accomplished, and 

 he thought a little more graceful than Jane, who was the older, or 

 Charlotte, who was younger than herself. 



He thought a little more meanly of himself for having taken her 

 to be a hired girl in the family, but not a whit more meanly of her 

 for having revealed herself in that capacity. And his perplexity 

 was somewhat increased as he sat down on his bedside in the chamber 

 to which he was shown by his host, and said to himself, 'which of 

 the three ? ' 



In the morning, after a night's sound sleep — for he was not suf- 

 ficiently in love to keep him awake — he entered the breakfast-room, 

 and was soon joined by the two young ladies who had first welcomed 

 him. Sarah was not yet visible ; but when they sat down at the 

 table, and Jane had poured the coffee, Sarah came smiling in behind 

 a clean white apron, and with a steaming pile of hot buckwheat cakes 

 in her hand, which from the hue of her cheeks, she had just been 

 haking. If there were a blush on her cheek, any eye might see it 

 was forced there by the fire, and not by any sense of degradation on 

 account of the office she gracefully filled. She greeted the guest 

 with a welcome smile, deposited her load of eatables, and returned to 

 the kitchen, whence she tripped again in a few minutes, with another 

 plate of cakes, most beautifully baked by her own skill. Horace ate 

 a large quantity of them, more than enough to satisfy hunger, be- 

 cause of the beautiful little hands that made them. And then he 

 wandered over the farm with the old man, and prated of horses and 

 cows, and crops, as though he knew something about them, as well 

 as broadcloths and calicos. At dinner time, Jane and Charlotte were 

 in the parlor waiting for him, and Sarah, as usual, was bustling about 

 the kitchen. ' I do wish,' said he, sotto voce, ' that one of those girls 



