"Perhaps I may have spent a summer in the country town where they live. Perhaps it has been my chance some evening to walk by the little, old, black house they moved into after their father's death, from the nice, white, green-blinded one he built for them, and the astral lamp on the round table may have lighted for me the tableau I am showing you. Our heroine works and studies late, perhaps; but she must not the less be up early the next morning, to do the heavier portion of the house-work before her mother is stirring. If ever you hear a severe tone in her voice, be sure the mother has been encroaching upon the daughter's prerogative by rising first, or by putting her hand to some forbidden toil.--Well, is all this enough? Not for Anna Westlake. There is a music lesson to be given, before she sets off for her regular day's work." "Is her name Anna?"--Westlake had once a sister Anna, whom he loved.--"Is she pretty?" "She might have been." "Fair hair? Blue eyes?" "Yes; a true Westlake in features and complexion; but somewhat thin for one of your family, as you may believe." "Pale, delicate?" "The winds of heaven have visited her too roughly." "Graceful?" "I should not dare to say Yes, seeing that grace is denied to New-England women; still less do I dare to say No, remembering how I have seen her taking her small brothers to their school, on the way to her own, making believe run races with them, to get the little wilful loiterers over the ground the quicker." "Borrow, it is a hard life for Anna Westlake,--for my cousin's child." "You would be a severe taskmaster, if you demanded of a slave such a day's work as hers. Of a slave! He would be insane who should expect it of any woman who had not the developed brain, the steady nerves, the abounding vitality of the born aristocrat. "But how is Reginald ever going to pay his debt to this sister? Do you think she will be satisfied with anything short of seeing him President? Who knows but she looks for more yet? The Puritan stamp is as strong on her as on her grandfather. Who knows but she looks to see him one of the lights of the world,--one of the benefactors of his race,--a discoverer in science,--a reformer? Here are responsibilities for a boy to set out under!" "For the boys, let them rough it; I have nothing to say. But, Borrow, when you go back, tell Anna Westlake there is a home for her here, whenever she is ready to come and take it." "I will tell her, if you will, that her cousins here wish to have news of her, and are ready to love her and hers. But propose to her a life of dependence! You must get a bolder man to do that errand." "It should not be a life of dependence. She may surely do for her own kindred what she does for a pack of village children. She should be an elder sister to my girls. Why, Borrow, I should like to have her here. I don't put it in the form of a favor to her. Her being here would be a great pleasure and a great good to my little Fanny."