“How does she maintain herself? why, in the strangest way you ever heard of. She does every thing and any thing. In the morning she finds out which of the children are likeliest to be the sickest through the day; these she carries with her, for she is a powerful, strong woman; and into a house she goes, seats the children in an obscure corner, and falls to work—nothing comes amiss. If it is washing day, she is up to her elbows in the suds before the lady of the house is up, and nothing but a constable will force her out till she has done two women’s work, has eaten three hearty meals, and fed the ailing children with such little scraps as their feeble health requires. She then gathers up the children, and, with a basket added to her load, off she goes to feed those at home with the savoury scraps in her basket. When she forces her way into a house she takes no money, contenting herself with receiving broken meat for her pay, and if there is more than enough for the family, she takes it in to Biddy Brady, or to one poor body or other. But this vagrant disposition is fast leaving her, for she is so useful and so cheerful that there are very few families that can do without her. She scents a dinner or a tea party at a great distance, and she gets there in the nick of time to be of service. She makes yeast, soap, candles, bread,—whitewashes, takes out grease and stains, paints rooms, mends broken windows and china,—cuts better cold slaw, as the Dutch call it, finer and quicker than any one,—makes sourcrout, pickles and preserves,—knows how to put up shad and smoke herrings; in short, in her ramblings she watched the different ways of doing things, and now she sets up for herself. You cannot think what a really useful woman Bonny Betty is; it is a pity that the children are so sickly.” “Has she a doctor?—does she ever consult a doctor?” “A doctor! why they are all more or less deformed. Ben, the eldest, has a great wen over his left eye which has nearly destroyed his sight; Kate, the next, has a broken back, and is lame; Jemmy is one sore from head to foot, and has been in that way for four years; Bob is a thin, sickly boy, that has fainty turns, and is beginning to lose his hearing; Susy is deaf and dumb; and little Christie, only four years old, has the dropsy.” “Good heavens! and this woman is cheerful, and maintains them all with the labour of her own hands?” “Yes, and is laying up money. She has nearly a hundred dollars in the Savings Fund; her children are well clothed for poor people’s children, and well fed; she has two pigs in the pen; and she and I are the only persons in the neighbourhood that keep a cow. She has a fresh cow in the fall and I in the spring; so we both do well by them. I wish she had a better shanty.” “Well, I shall make acquaintance with Bonny Betty; who comes next?”