“I ain’t like him; I ain’t like this Miss Banker; I ain’t like anybody,” she whispered. “I’m nothin’ but a homely, old-fashioned woman, without larnin’, without nothin’. I might know I wasn’t wanted,” and a rain of tears fell over the wrinkled face as she uttered this tirade against herself, standing before the long mirror, and inspecting the image it gave back of a plain, unpolished countrywoman, not much resembling Mrs. Banker, it must be confessed, nor much resembling the gay young ladies she had seen at the opera the previous night. “I won’t go near Katy,” she continued; “it would only mortify her, and I don’t want to make her trouble. The poor thing’s face looked as if she had it now, and I won’t add to it. I’ll start for home to-morrow. There’s Miss Smith, in Springfield, will keep me over night, and Katy shan’t be bothered.” When this decision was reached, Aunt Betsy felt a great deal better, and taking the Bible from the table, she sat down again before the fire, opening, as by a special Providence, to the chapter where the hewers of wood and drawers of water are mentioned as being necessary to mankind, each filling his appointed place. “That’s me—that’s Betsy Barlow,” she whispered, taking off her glasses to wipe away the moisture gathering so fast upon them. Then resuming them, she continued, “I’m a hewer of wood—a drawer of water. God made me so, and shall the clay find fault with the potter, for making it into a homely jug? No, indeed; and I was a very foolish old jug to think of sticking myself in with the china ware. But I’ve larnt a lesson,” and the philosophic old woman read on, feeling comforted to know that though a vessel of the rudest make, a paltry _jug_, as she called herself, the promises were still for her as much as for the finer wares—aye, that there was more hope of her entering at last where “the walls are all of precious stones and the streets are paved with gold,” than of those whose good things are given so abundantly during their lifetime. Assured, comforted, and encouraged, she fell asleep at last, and when Mrs. Banker returned she found her slumbering quietly in her chair, the Bible open on her lap, and her finger upon the passage referring to the hewers of wood and drawers of water, as if that was the last thing read.