“They certainly are very creditable to your taste and handiwork. But,” stooping over, and pressing a kiss on her rich rosy lips, “you must take more care of yourself, dearest, or you will overdo the matter.” “Don’t I look like a tender, delicate creature, that requires careful nursing? Oh, fie on you! I am afraid you have lost all your gallantry. I am very certain Maria Davidson’s cheek was never half so blooming when you used to pay it so many compliments. I am certainly at least five pounds heavier than I was when I came up here. The sun, too, is giving my complexion that darker hue you so much admire.” “I admire brown complexions! When did you ever hear me say so?” “I don’t know that I ever did. But then, you know, dear, Laura Bridgeman was a decided brunette.” “Pshaw!” said Dawson, laughing; “not jealous, I trust, Maria, of the remembrance of my old flirtation with Laura.” “Not very, sir,” she added, looking down demurely, “for, you know, when it happened I was a little girl that had not yet come out.” “What a fortunate escape Laura, and her mamma would think she had made, if they could only see me now busily engaged in my shirt-sleeves, planting, digging, weeding, raking, learning to mow, in fine, learning to earn my own bread and that of those dearer to me than life.” “I don’t feel at all sentimental in connection with Laura Bridgeman; and so,” she added, turning to the piano and striking up a gallope, “here’s something that lady would prefer at any time to sentiment.” The piece finished, she at once changed the measure, and in a few moments her rich, full voice was heard in a song which was a peculiar favorite of her husband’s. The sound of the music attracted the children, who now came in, the youngest in his young nurse’s arms, to kiss papa good-night, whilst Maria prepared her baby for bed. Whilst our heroine was thus active within doors, it must not be supposed that her husband was supine without. He was industriously learning the practical parts of his new vocation. He was engaged, the dandy of the pavé, the saloons and the clubs, learning, in his shirt-sleeves, to plough, to harrow, to mow, to dig, and, in fine, to do all that a hard-working farmer is compelled to do. He was aware that the head as well as the hand is necessary to direct aright the art of tillage, as any other art, and that a man may learn every thing concerning the rotation of crops, and all the rest of the art, and yet be deficient in the skill of an ordinary hand in the manual operations; but he thought it best to learn all, in order that in future he might direct all; and so he worked away under the tuition of one of his hired men, and was rapidly becoming a proficient. The hands had lost the softness and whiteness of the city dandy, and had put on that covering of brown which he condemned on the cheek of his wife, only that the shade was darker, and the hardening process had been so gone through with that blisters no longer troubled him.