sottish, that all her exertions were needed to keep her little flock from suffering with cold and hunger.  No woman could have laboured more untiringly than she did, but it was labouring against a strong current that bore her little bark slowly, but surely backward.  Here, then, are the two sisters; one, the elder, and superior in all the endowments of head and heart—­the other with few claims to estimation other than those afforded by a competence of worldly goods.  Let us view them a little closer.  Perhaps we can read a lesson in their mutual conduct that will not soon be forgotten.

In earlier years, I have learned, that they were much attached to each other.  In their father’s house, they knew no cares, and when they married, which was within a few years of each other, their prospects were equal for future happiness.  While this equality existed, their intercourse was uninterrupted and affectionate.  But, as Mr. Haller began to neglect his family, the cloud that settled upon the brow of his poor wife was not pleasant for Mrs. Williams to look upon.  Nor were the complaints that a full heart too often forced to the lips, at all agreeable to her ears.  Naturally proud and selfish, these two feelings had been gaining strength with the progress of years, and were now so confirmed, that even towards an only sister in changed circumstances they remained in full activity.

When I first went to live with Mr. Williams, Mrs. Haller resided in a neatly furnished, small two-story brick house.  Her husband had not then shown his vagabond propensities very distinctly, though he spent in his family, and otherwise, all that he earned each week, thus leaving nothing for a rainy day.  He was a little in debt, too, but not so much as to make him feel uneasy.  Mrs. Haller was anxious to lay up something, and to be getting ahead in the world, and was, consequently, always troubled because things never got any better.  She came to our house every week, and Mr. Williams would visit her once in a month or two.  Mrs. Haller often talked of her troubles to her sister, who used then to sympathize with her, and make many suggestions of means to gender things more accordant with her desires.  As matters gradually grew worse in the progress of time, and Mrs. Haller began to make rather an indifferent appearance, the manner of her sister became evidently constrained and unsympathizing.  She began to look upon her in the light of a “poor relation.”  Her children, cousins of course to Mrs. Williams’s, were not treated encouragingly when they came to our house, and if company happened to be there, they were kept out of sight, or sent home.  Mrs. Williams rarely visited Mrs. Haller—­not so often as once in six months.