This pleasant journey of forty miles was performed in the same style, with a single horse, taking one of the children in rotation, to share in our happiness.
Our household, besides our three lovely children, comprised a maiden sister of the first Mrs. Sigourney, a lady of most amiable manners, and of the same age with my husband, two clerks, who, being from good families, were generally included in our own circle, two men employed about the grounds, store, or stables, and three female servants. Finding the arrangements of a family that had been in existence, sixteen years systematically established, I was careful not to disturb or interfere with its routine unnecessarily. Still it was my desire to bear a part in its operations, and to prove that the years devoted to different pursuits had created neither indifference nor disqualification for domestic duty. In this new sphere I could scarcely hope to equal my predecessor—who was a model of elegance—but was assiduous that our hospitalities, especially the dinner parties, which were occasionally large, should show no diminution of liberality and order.
Habitual industry did not forsake me, but was ready to enter untried departments. Perceiving my husband to be pleased with efforts of the needle and knitting-needles, mine were seldom idle. Not content with stockings of all sizes, I constructed gloves of various sorts, adjusting their fingers to the tiniest hands, and surprised at my own success. A still bolder em-
