"Reuben! Reuben!" entreated the young wife, leaning over him, "you are talking too much. You promised me you wouldn't, you know."
"Well, well, I won't. But when a fellow's heart is chock-full, it's hard to shut down on it sometimes. Don't look so, friends, as if ye pitied me! I a'n't to be pitied. I'll bet there isn't one of ye half as happy as I am at this minute!"
"Here's Miss Beswick, Mother Ducklow," said Sophronia. "Haven't you noticed her?"
"Oh! how do you do, Miss Beswick?" said Mrs. Ducklow, appearing surprised.
"Tryin' to keep out o' the way, and make myself useful," replied Miss Beswick, stiffly.
"I don't know what I should do without her," said Sophronia, as the tall spinster disappeared. "She took right hold and helped me last night; then she came in again the first thing this morning. 'Go to your husband,' says she to me; 'don't leave him a minute. I know he don't want ye out of his sight,--and you don't want to be out of his sight, either; so you 'tend right to him, and I'll do the work. There'll be enough folks comin' in to hender, but I've come in to help,' says she. And here she's been ever since, hard at work; for when Miss Beswick says a thing, there's no use opposing her,--that _you_ know, Mother Ducklow."
"Yes, she likes to have her own way," said Mrs. Ducklow, with a peculiar pucker.
"It seems she called at the door last night to tell you Reuben had come."
"Called at the door! Didn't she tell you she came in and made us a visit?"
Mrs. Ducklow concluded, that, if nothing had been said on that subject, she might as well remain silent; so she merely remarked,--
"Oh, yes, a visit,--_for her_. She a'n't no great hand to make long stops, ye know."
"Only when she's needed," said Sophronia; "then she never thinks of going as long as she sees anything to do. Reuben! you mustn't talk, Reuben!"
"I was saying," remarked Neighbor Jepworth, "it'll be too bad now, if you have to give up this place; but he"----
Sophronia, unseen by her husband, made anxious signs to the speaker to avoid so distressing a topic in the invalid's presence.
"We are not going to worry about that'," she hastened to say. "After we have been favored by Providence so far, and in such extraordinary ways, we think we can afford to trust still further. We have all we can think of and attend to to-day; and the future will take care of itself."