Nothing ever ailed Muriel.
The spring of 1812 was an era long remembered in our family.

Scarlet fever went through the house--safely, but leaving much care behind.
When at last they all came round, and we were able to gather our pale little flock to a garden feast, under the big old pear-tree, it was with the trembling thankfulness of those who have gone through great perils, hardly dared to be recognized as such till they were over.
"Ay, thank God it is over!" said John, as he put his arm round his wife, and looked in her worn face, where still her own smile lingered--her bright, brave smile, that nothing could ever drive away.
"And now we must try and make a little holiday for you." "Nonsense! I am as well as possible.

Did not Dr.Jessop tell me, this morning, I was looking younger than ever?
I--a mother of a family, thirty years old?
Pray, Uncle Phineas, do I look my age ?" I could not say she did not--especially now.

But she wore it so gracefully, so carelessly, that I saw--ay, and truly her husband saw--a sacred beauty about her jaded cheek, more lovely and lovable than all the bloom of her youth.

Happy woman! who was not afraid of growing old.
"Love"-- John usually called her "Love"-- putting it at the beginning of a sentence, as if it had been her natural Christian name--which, as in all infant households, had been gradually dropped or merged into the universal title of "Mother." My name for her was always emphatically "The Mother"-- the truest type of motherhood I ever knew.
"Love," her husband began again, after a long look in her face--ah, John, thine was altered too, but himself was the last thing he thought of--"say what you like--I know what we'll do: for the children's sake.
Ah, that's her weak point;--see, Phineas, she is yielding now.