they become acquainted with thee, they’ll only have the better means of judging thee truly.”  “If I say nothing about it, though,” urged I, “she’ll feel encouraged to talk on, and worse.”  “If thou dost find she is really doing thee an injury,” returned Aunty, “I’ll not dissuade thee from taking it in hand; but, as it now stands, it is not worth disturbing thyself about.”  “I could make her feel so ashamed,” persisted I.  “I don’t doubt thee,” replied she, laughing; “I don’t doubt thee in the least:  but in doing so, won’t thou get excited?  Won’t thou sleep better, and study better, and waste less time, if thou just ‘let well enough alone?’” “That seems a favorite maxim with you,” observed I.  “I have found it a very useful one,” she answered; “and, had I known its value earlier in life, I might have escaped a good deal of suffering.  Ten years ago, I had a kind husband, and a promising son, and slowly, yet surely, they were gathering a pretty competence.  We thought we could gather faster by going south; but the location proved unhealthy, and in one season I lost them both by a bilious fever.”  Sympathy kept me silent.  “You would not discourage all attempts to better one’s condition?” I at length inquired.  “By no means,” answered Aunt Rachel; “for that were to check energy and retard improvement.  I would only advise people—­impulsive people especially—­to think before they act:  for it is always easier to avoid an evil than to remedy it.  Thou art fond of History,” she continued, “and that, both sacred and profane, abounds with examples of those who, in the day of adversity or retribution, have wished, oh how earnestly, that they had let well enough alone.  Jacob, an exile from his father’s house:  Shimei, witnessing the return of David:  Zenobia, high-spirited and accustomed to homage, gracing Aurelian’s triumph, and living a captive in Rome:  Christina, after she had relinquished the crown of Sweden; and, in our own days, Great Britain, involved in a long and losing war with her American colonies.  Every-day life, too, is full of such examples.”  I asked her to mention some.  “Thou canst see one,” she answered, “in the speculator, whose anxiety for sudden wealth has reduced his family to indigence; and in the girl who leaves her plain country home, and sacrifices her health, and perhaps her virtue, in a city workshop.  Disputatious people, passionate people, those who indulge in personalities, and those who meddle with what don’t concern them, are very apt to wish they had let well enough alone.  People who are forever changing their residence or their store, their clerks, or their domestics, frequently find reason for such a wish.  Even in household affairs, my maxim saves me many an hour of unnecessary labor.  Dost thou remember the bedstead?” she added, with a smile.  “Yes, indeed,” I answered; “I shall never forget that.  The other day I was going to alter my pink dress into a wrapper, like Miss Mansell’s; but the thought of that old bedstead stopped me; and I’m glad of it; for, now that I look again, I don’t think it would pay me for the trouble.”  “Well, think again before thou dost notice Jane Ansley’s talk,” said Aunty.  I followed her advice; and I have never regretted that I did so.