I have remarked how different were husband and wife.  They lived together, however, without discord, for Mr. Meeker yielded most points of controversy when they arose, and for the rest his wife was neither disagreeable nor unamiable.  But the poor woman had experienced through life one great drawback; she had half-a-dozen fine children.  Alas! not one of them resembled her in temper, character, or disposition.  All possessed their father’s happy traits, which were developed more and more as they grew older, despite their mother’s incessant warnings and teachings.

Frank, the first-born, exhibited fondness for books, and early manifested an earnest desire for a liberal education with a view to the study of medicine.  His father resolved to gratify him.  His mother was opposed to it.  She wanted her boy a merchant.  ‘Doctors,’ she said, ’were mostly a poor set, who were obliged to work very hard by day and by night, and got little for it.  If Frank would only be contented to go into her cousin’s store, in New-York, (he was one of the prominent wholesale dry-goods jobbers,) why, there would be some hope of him, that is, if he could cure himself of certain extravagant notions; but to go through college, and then study medicine!  Why couldn’t he, at least, be a lawyer, then there might be a chance for him.’

‘But the boy has no taste for mercantile life, nor for the law,’ said Mr. Meeker.

‘Taste—­fiddlesticks,’ responded his wife, ’as if a boy has a right to have any taste contrary to his parents’ wish.’.

‘But, Jane, it is not contrary to my wish.’

Mrs. Meeker looked her husband steadily in the face.  She saw there an unusual expression of firmness; something which she knew it to be idle to contend with, and with her usual good sense, she withdrew from the contest.

’Have it your own way, Mr. Meeker.  You know my opinion.  It was my duty to express it.  Make of Frank what you like.  I pray that he may be prospered in whatever he undertakes.’

So Frank was sent to college, with the understanding that, after graduating, he was to pursue his favorite study of medicine.

A few months after he entered, Mrs. Meeker gave birth to her seventh child—­the subject of the present narrative.  Her disappointment at Frank’s destination was severe.  Besides, she met with daily evidences that pained her.  None of her children were, to use her expression, ‘after her own heart.’  There were two other boys, George and William, who she was accustomed to say, almost bitterly, were ‘clear father.’  The three girls, Jane, Laura, and Mary, one would suppose might represent the mother’s side; but alas! they were ‘clear father’ too.