Now I am older, and the sap of life does not run so freely in my veins, I almost marvel at the remembrance of those days, at my youthful exuberance and energy, and those words, "As thy day, so shall thy strength be," come to me with a strange force and illumination, for truly I needed it all then, and it was given to me. Time was a treasure trove, and I husbanded every minute with a miser's zeal. I had always been an early riser, and now I reaped the benefit of this habit. Jack used to murmur discontentedly in her sleep when I set the window open soon after six, and the fresh summer air fanned her hot face. But how cool and dewy the garden looked at that hour! It was so bright and still, with the thrushes and blackbirds hopping over the wet lawn, and the leaves looking so fresh and green in the morning sun; such twitterings and chirpings came from the lilac trees, where the little brown sparrows twittered and plumed themselves. The bird music used to chime in in a sort of refrain to my morning prayers--a diminutive chorus of praise--the choral before the day's service commenced. I always gave Jack a word of warning before I left the room (the reprimand used to find her in the middle of a dream), and then I went to Dot. I used to help him to dress and hear him repeat his prayers, and talk cheerfully to him when he was languid and fretful, and the small duties of life were too heavy for his feeble energies. Dot always took a large portion of my time; his movements were slow and full of tiny perversities; he liked to stand and philosophize in an infantile way when I wanted to be downstairs helping Deborah. Dot's fidgets, as I called them, were part of the day's work. When he was ready to hobble downstairs with his crutch, I used to fly back to Jack, and put a few finishing touches to her toilet, for I knew by experience that she would make her appearance downstairs with a crooked parting and a collar awry, and be grievously plaintive when Carrie found fault with her. Talking never mended matters; Jack was at the hoiden age, and had to grow into tidiness and womanhood by-and-by. After that I helped Deborah, and took up mother's breakfast. I always found her lying with her face to the window, and her open Bible beside her. Carrie had always been in before me and arranged the room. Mother slept badly, and at that early hour her face had a white, pining look, as though she had lost her way in the night, or waked to miss something. She used to turn with a sweet troubled smile to me as I entered. "Here comes my busy little woman," she would say, with a pretense at cheerfulness, and then she would ask after Dot. She never spoke much of her sadness to us; with an unselfishness that was most rare she refused to dim our young cheerfulness by holding an unhealed grief too plainly before our eyes. Dear mother, I realize now what that silence must have cost her!