CHAPTER III.
Weeks flitted over the Gregorys, whose course it is needless to trace.
Aunt Debby became fully satisfied that if there was a woman in the world fit for Dr. Gregory it was the one he had married. Few children ever had a step-mother like her, very few indeed. Never a loud word nor a cross look had she seen, never! She guessed, too, there were not many women, ladies born and bred, that knew when work was done about right better than she, not many. She didn’t know who should be a judge if she wasn’t, that had kept Dr. Arthur Gregory’s house for upward of twenty years—twenty years last August.
What was that gentleman’s private opinion in the matter, these closing sentences of an epistle given under his hand will tell.
“. . . . A strangely excellent wife is this same Catharine Gregory. Alone in her society, I love her; with my children, I am grateful to her; among my friends, I am proud of her. Every day convinces me more perfectly that I have found in her such a combination of virtues as I have never seen or hoped to see since departed
‘The being beauteous
Who unto my youth was given.’
Hoping, for your sake, my dear Ashmun, (though with doubt I confess,) that this planet bears such another, I am yours,
Gregory.”
And many were the doctor’s patients whose pale faces lighted at the sight of her, and whose wo-laden hearts beat freer to the music of her step.