I believe _Anstace_ and _Helen_ are satisfied, but then 'tis their nature to be content with things as they be. I do not know about _Mother_ and Aunt _Joyce_. I misdoubt if it be altogether their nature. But then neither do they seem always satisfied. _Father_ doth so: and his nature is high enough. I think I shall ask _Father_. As for Cousin _Bess_, an' I were to ask at her, she should conceive me never a whit. 'Tis her nature to cook and darn and scour, and to look complacently on her cake and her mended hole and her cleaned chamber, and never trouble herself to think that they shall lack doing o'er again to-morrow. Chambers are like to need cleansing, and what were women made for save to keep them clean? That is Cousin _Bess_, right out. For Master _Stuyvesant_, methinks he is right the other way, and rather counts the world a dirty place and full of holes, that there shall be no good in neither cleansing nor mending. And I look not on matters in that light. Methinks it were better to cleanse the chamber, if only one could keep it from being dirtied at after. I shall see what _Father_ saith. SELWICK HALL, DECEMBER THE XII. Yester even, as we were sat in the great chamber,--there was _Mother_ and _Helen_ at their wheels, and Aunt _Joyce_ and my Lady _Stafford_ a-sewing, and Mistress _Martin_ and _Milisent_ and me at the broidery,-- and _Father_ had but just beat Sir _Robert_ in a game of the chess, and _Mynheer_, one foot upon his other knee, was deep in a great book which thereon rested,--and fresh logs were thrown of the fire by _Kate_, which sent forth upward a shower of pleasant sparkles, and methought as I glanced around the chamber, that all looked rare pleasant and comfortable, and we ought to thank God therefore. When all had been silent a short while, out came I with my question, well-nigh ere I myself wist it were out-- "_Father_, are you satisfied?" "A mighty question, my maid," saith he,--while _Helen_ looked up in surprise, and Aunt _Joyce_ and Mistress _Martin_ and _Milisent_ fell a-laughing. "With what? The past, the present, or the future?" quoth _Father_. "With things, _Father_," said I. "With life and every thing." "Ah, _Edith_, hast thou come to that?" saith my Lady _Stafford_: and she exchanged smiles with _Mother_. "_Daughter_," _Father_ makes answer, "methinks no man is ever satisfied with life, until he be first satisfied with God. The furthest he can go in that direction, is not to think if he be satisfied or no. A man may be well pleased with lesser things: but to be satisfied, that can he not." "`Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again,'" quoth _Mother_, softly. "Ay," saith Sir _Robert_; "and wit you, Mistress _Edith_, what cometh at times to men adrift of the ocean, when all their fresh water is spent?" "Why, surely, they should find water in plenty in the sea, Sir," said I.