"To be sure," said Miss Simpkins the younger, at length, after a pause, in which the half-awakened better nature seemed strongly disposed to resume its slumbers again, "little civility has the Widow Layton to expect from any body with her distant bows and uppish airs, when one ventures to express an interest in her; and if I hadn't a very forgiving disposition, oh! Jerusha! Jerusha! I don't think I'd trouble myself to call upon her again. But I feel it to be my duty to advise her to put little Fanny to school, for she's a good child and winsome-like, and running at large so will just be the spoiling of her." "Well, Jerusha," responded Miss Nancy, who had, perhaps, a little leaven more than her sister, of tartness in her disposition, and on whose face an habitual expression of acidity was rapidly increasing, "you know very well that the widow considers herself a little above every body else in Aberdeen, and you might as well talk to a stone wall as to her about sending the child to school. Why haven't I done my best at talking to her? Haven't I told her of Miss Birch's school, where the children don't so much as turn round without their teacher's leave, and where you might hear a pin drop at any time. Haven't I told her that she might easily save a good deal in the year, by renting one half of that snug little cottage--and what thanks did I get? A reply as haughty as if she were the greatest lady in the land, instead of being, as she is, a nameless, homeless stranger, who cannot be 'any better than she should be,' or she would never make such a mighty mystery about her past life, that she 'trusted Miss Simpkins would allow her to be the best judge as to the proper method of educating her child, and also as to the means of retrenching her own expenses if she found it needful.'" Unkind, unjust, unfeeling Nancy Simpkins! and has not that settled, ever-present sorrow upon those pale features; have not those grief-traced lines around the compressed mouth, and across the once smooth and polished brow; has not the sad garb of the mourner, which speaks of the lone vigil, the weary watching, the hope deferred, or it may be the sudden stroke of the dread tyrant Death, no appeal to thy frozen sympathies? Canst thou suffer thy better nature to resume its deep and trance-like sleep again, and rob that poor widowed mother of her only hope on earth, that bright, glad creature, who carries sunshine to her otherwise desolate home, but to pinion her free and fetterless spirit beneath the iron rule and despotic sway of the village task-mistress? We will leave the Misses Simpkins, and thou pleasest, reader mine, to the enjoyment of their envy-tinctured converse, and turn the page of Mrs. Layton's life.