She never thought of her own full hands; for she was of a nature that delighted in work, and in doing things regularly and methodically, and all the girls were like her. Busy, busy, busy, they all were from morning till night, and most happily busy. It was making, and mending, and razeeing, and cooking, and preserving, and housekeeping, and shopping, and keeping accounts. Was not this quite enough to occupy them? Mr. Bangs built houses and Mrs. Bangs looked to the tenants and collected the rents. The only thing she knew, out of the routine of her family duties, was the various ways of disposing of money, and before she was the mother of three children she made herself fully acquainted with the meaning of the terms _dividends_, _stock_, _per centage_, _mortgages_ and _notes of hand_. She put the money in the bank as fast as she received it, and Mr. Bangs drew checks to any amount she chose—well he might. Mrs. Bangs thought it more suitable and economical to have a governess for her daughters, so she hired a decent young person, who was an excellent needle woman, and who could write and cipher admirably. Reading and spelling, Mrs. Bangs said, seemed to come “by nature” with the poor, dear, chubby, little things; how else could they learn, for poor Hannah French was as deaf as a post. So eternally busy were they all from morning till ten at night, that Robina, a pretty, delicate girl, with a good understanding, and very excitable, had never found time to cultivate the acquaintance of any of the young girls of her own age, although in the abstract there was no unwillingness to it. Neither her father nor mother would have hindered her, but sisters and companions came so fast at home, and that home was made so happy by her active, well-principled mother, that there was no craving for out-door society. Mrs. Bangs was a pious and benevolent woman too, and after going through all her home duties she thought of the poor, and three days she set apart in every month to sew for them. All the children, down to the baker’s dozen, felt this as part of their duty, and they no more thought it possible to break through the rule than not to eat when they were hungry. It was a _want_ which they sought to attain like any other want or comfort. Mrs. Bangs never staid to inquire whether the poor wretches were worthy of her attentions—“Let that alone,” she would say, “‘tis no concern of ours.” She reverently left it to a higher power to judge of their worthiness. All she had to do was to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, choosing old age and infancy whenever she could, for the objects of her bounty. The children thus brought up, I should like to know,—as they did their own clear-starching, knitted stockings for their father, grandfather, and three aged uncles, made their own linen and worked all the baby caps, as well as sewed for the poor—I should like to know what time they had to gossip or make acquaintances, excepting with the poor?