"They have certainly changed for the worse," remarked Lindsay. "I remember the Newmans very well—a happy, homely family living in a long, low, red frame house, and having everything about them plain and plentiful."
"So had we in our former dwelling," said Mr. Hilliard, "yet I think we are living still better now."
"I have many pleasant recollections of the old house," said Lindsay.
"For you," observed the farmer, "our old house and the manner in which we then lived, owed most of their charms to novelty, and to the circumstance that children are seldom fastidious. I doubt much, if you had found everything in statu quo, and the old house and its inhabitants just as you left them, whether you could have been induced to make us as long a visit as I hope you will now."
"My husband," said Mrs. Hilliard, "is different from most men of his age. Instead of dwelling all the while upon old times, he stands up for the times we live in, and says everything now is better than it used to be. And he's brought me to agree with him pretty much—I never was an idle woman, and I keep myself busy enough still, but I do think it is pleasanter to keep hired people for the hard work than to have to help with it myself, as you know I used to. Though I never complained about it, still I cannot say, now I look back, that there was any great pleasure in helping on washing-days and ironing-days, or in making soft soap, and baking great batches of bread and pies—to be sure, my soft soap was admired all over the country, and my bread was always light, and my pie-crust never tough. Neither was there much delight in seeing my two eldest girls paddling to the barn-yard every morning and evening, through all weathers, to milk the cows; or setting them at heavy churnings, and other hard work. And then at harvest-time, and at killing-time, and when we were getting the marketing ready for husband to take to town in the wagon, we were on our feet the whole blessed day. To be sure, they were used to it, but I often felt sorry for Abraham and the boys, when they came home from the field in a warm evening, so tired with work they could hardly speak, and were glad to wash themselves, and get their supper, and go to bed at dark. And the girls and I were always glad enough, too, to get our rest as soon as we had put away the milk and washed the supper things; knowing we should have to be up before the stars were gone, to sweep the house and do the milking, and get the breakfast, that the men might be off early to work."
"I remember all this very well," said Lindsay.
"To be sure you do," pursued Mrs. Hilliard. "Then don't you think it's pleasant for us now not to be overworked during the day, so that in the evening, instead of going to bed, we can sit round the table in a nice parlour, and sew and knit; or read, for them that likes it. Husband and the girls always did take pleasure in reading—and, for my part, now I've time, I'm beginning to like a book myself. Last winter, I read a good deal in the second volume of the Spectator. In short, I have not the least notion of grieving after our way of living at the old house."
"Nor I neither," added Abraham; "and I really find it much more agreeable to superintend my farm, than to be obliged to labour on it myself."
"And now let us proceed with our tea," said Mrs. Hilliard; "and, Neddy, if you do not eat hearty of what you see before you, I shall think you are fretting after the mush and milk, and sowins, and pie and cheese, that we use to have on our old supper table, and which I do not believe you could eat now if they were before you. Come, you must not mind my speaking out so plainly. You know I always was a right-down sort of woman, and am so still."
Edward smiled, and pressed her hand kindly, acknowledging that all she had said was justified by truth and reason.