46 
A HAPPY FAMILY. 
We are a cosy quiet couple, not frequently haunted by 
cares, or excited by varieties. We live just far enough 
from town to be free from temptations of pleasure, yet 
near enough to avoid lapsing into vapid dullness; in 
fact, we manage to combine town and country life 
together in our little household, and to adorn our rustic 
pursuits with a few of the graces of literature, and some 
touches of homely art. I might perhaps amuse you by 
a relation of our every-day life, its whims and oddities 
and the utter abandonment to impulse to which, since 
our first wedding-day, we have been addicted; but it is 
the family we have reared that I think I may most 
profitably talk about, and, at the risk of being thought 
egotistical, I shall give you a brief account of it. 
I venture to say that few strictly private families are 
so truly happy as ours; for though it comprises 
thousands of children of all ages,—some older than 
ourselves, many of them differing in temper and taste as 
widely as the pole differs from the equator,—yet the 
most perfect harmony at all times prevails amongst us, 
and the only anxiety that possesses us is to render each 
other happy. To be sure, the elements of “ a row ” are 
