"No, it is something more than pride, Jane," said Chester, tenderly. "I love to feel that your comforts are all earned by my own strength; that I am soul and body your protector; were I able, you should never soil these hands with labor again!" Mrs. Chester lifted the hand which she held to her lips, and her eyes beamed with joy through the tears that filled them. "I know all this, John, and it makes me love you! oh, how dearly; but then it is wrong--very, very delightful, but still wrong." "Why wrong, Jane, I cannot understand that?" "Wrong--why because it might, if I were only selfish enough to take advantage of your tenderness, make me a very useless, gossiping, idle sort of person." "You would never come to that, Jane." "No, I should not like to become one of those worthless drones in the great hive of human life, who exist daintily on their husbands' energies, making him the slave of capricious wants that would never arise but for the idea that it is refined and feminine to be useless. I would be a wife; a companion; a help to my husband." "And so you are, all these and more," said Chester, gazing with delight on her animated face. "God bless you, Jane, for you have been to me a noble and a true wife." "Well, then, of course I am to have my own way now. This poor child, I shall not mind in the least asking about work, when it is for her." "But the shopkeepers, they will not know why you do this." "Well, what need I care for them?" "They will think you have a very shiftless, or perhaps dissipated husband, who obliges you to go about among them begging for work." "No--no, these miseries are not written in my face, John, they will never think that of me." "Or a widow, perhaps!" rejoined Chester, with a faint smile. "Don't talk in that way," and Mrs. Chester's eyes filled with tears. "A widow--your widow--I should never live to be that. The very thought makes my heart stand still. With you I can do anything--but alone--a widow--John, never mention that word again!" Chester drew down his wife's head and kissed her cheek very tenderly, smoothing her bright tresses with his hand the while. "Why you should learn to think of these things without so much terror, Jane," he said, in a voice full of tenderness, but still sad, as if some unconquerable presentiment were overshadowing him. "No--no--I cannot! Talk of something else, John; the little girl, we have forgotten her." The husband and wife both looked toward the couch. Mary had half risen, and with her elbow resting on the pillow, was regarding them intently with her large and glittering eyes. "We have disturbed her!" said Jane Chester. "How wide wake she is," and she went up to the couch. "I could not help listening," said the child, falling back on the pillow as Jane came up. "Besides I want to say something. I can sew very nicely, and wash dishes, and sweep, and a great many other things--if you will only let me stay!"