The spring had returned with its new-born beauty, its swelling buds, it tender grass; here and there a tree in the city anticipated the season of leaves, and put forth its verdant honors. “Now, ma’am,” said Lucy, who had long been a faithful domestic in the family, “if you are going particular, and don’t expose yourself by going into the garden, and will take the cough-drops regularly, morning and evening, you will get rid of your cold. This is just the season when every body gets well that got sick as you did.”

“How was that?” said Mrs. Draper.

“Why, when the sap was going down the trees in the autumn; but now it is going up.”

But whether the sap had already gone up, or for some other reason, which was as clear to human perception, Francis did not shake off her wearing cough. Mr. Draper was not alarmed at it; it was very unobtruding, and he had become used to it. It was not one of those vulgar, hoarse coughs, that, till we connect danger with it, often excites indignation in those who are listening to an interesting narrative, or to a reader, who is obliged to wait till the impertinent paroxysm is over. Mrs. Draper’s was quite a lady-like cough, low and gentle, and seemed rather like impeded respiration.

Visiters would sometimes observe, when they went away, “Mrs. Draper is still a handsome woman, though she has lost her bloom. What a pity she has that affected little cough! it really spoils her; it is nothing but a habit; she could easily break herself of it, if any body would be honest enough to tell her.” This task rested with Lucy alone; but it was all in vain. Frances took the cough-drops morning and evening, and still the disagreeable habit remained. Mr. Draper was very little at home; and when he was, his mind was engaged by new projects. Anxiety, however, did not rob him of sleep: he was too successful; he seemed to have the Midas-like art of turning every thing to gold:—his thousands were rapidly accumulating, and half a million was now the point at which he determined to stop. Mrs. Draper’s slight cough did not attract his attention; but if her appetite failed, he grew anxious, and feared she was not well.

Week after week passed, and still it was impossible for Mr. Draper to leave the city. At length, a letter arrived from Charlotte, claiming the visit; and he substituted one of his clerks to conduct his family to his brother’s residence. Here, though not more than forty miles from the city, Mrs. Draper found the freshness and novelty of country life. The family were farmers, children and all. Charlotte was acquainted with all the little details belonging to a farm, and took as much interest as her husband did in the growth of grain, the raising of pigs and poultry, and feeding cattle in the best and most economical manner. She displayed her dairy with its cheese arranged on shelves, her white pans of milk, and her newly-churned butter, which impregnated the air with its sweetness.

It was with long-forgotten feelings of health that Frances breathed the atmosphere around her; she perceived that her respiration was more free. “How ignorant I was,” said she to Howard, “to compare my city garden to the country! There is music in every accidental sound. How fresh is the air! how unlike the mornings to which I have been accustomed, where the voice of the teamster urging on his over-loaded horse, or the monotonous cry of the fishmonger, disturbed my slumbers!”

Her heart beat with pleasure as she saw her children go forth with their cousins to rural enjoyments: her tender bud, which she had often feared would never live to unfold its beauty, her little Charlotte, she saw here as joyous and as active as her sister. New hopes and anticipations brightened the future. How does returning health change the prospect of external circumstances! The cough was much less constant, and Charlotte, who professed to have wonderful skill in curing diseases, had undertaken to eradicate it. She did not approve of late slumbers, and every morning she brought her patient a tumbler of new milk, and challenged her to come out and breathe the fresh air. “Do not wait,” said she, “till its wings are clogged by the smoke of the city; come and win an appetite for our country breakfast, our new-laid eggs: the children are hunting for them amongst the hay, and here comes my little namesake with her prize: she has brought hers for your breakfast.”

Mr. Draper did not arrive at the time he appointed, and Frances often felt the sickness of hope delayed. “Deliver me from such excellent husbands,” said Charlotte to Howard, “who are wasting the best years of their lives in acquiring wealth for their families, and yet never think themselves rich enough. Here is poor Frances, kept in a state of feverish anxiety, when rest and tranquillity are absolutely necessary for the restoration of her health.”

The Saturday evening following, Mr. Draper arrived. He was delighted to see his wife and children, and thought they looked remarkably well. On Sunday morning, he walked with his brother over the farm, and calculated the probable receipts of the year. Away from the atmosphere of business, his mind seemed to recover its former freshness. “How beautiful this stillness is!” said he: “it reminds me of the mythology of the heathen world; the ancients used to say that when Pan slept, all nature held its breath, lest it should awake him. You have made an enthusiast of Frances; nothing will do for her now but the country.”

“My wife is anxious about the health of yours,” said Howard; “she thinks her cough an indication of weak lungs.”

“I know,” said Mr. Draper, stopping short, “she is subject to a cough; ours is a miserable climate; I hope the warm weather will entirely banish it. I have a bad cough myself;”—and he coughed with energy.

“I wish, brother,” said Howard, “that period had arrived, at which you have so long been aiming, that you thought yourself rich enough to devote more time to your family.”

“No one can look forward to it more eagerly than I do,” replied Mr. Draper; “but you can little understand the difficulty of withdrawing from business. However, I fully mean to do it, when I have secured to my wife and children an inheritance.”

Howard smiled.

“O,” said Mr. Draper, in reply to the smile, “you must not suppose my wants can be measured by yours. Your farm supplies you with the materials of life, and you get them at a cheap rate.”

“I give for them what you give,” said Howard, “time,—and a little more,—I give manual labor; you know I belong to the working class. In this money-making day, men despise small gains, and yet my own experience tells me they are sufficient for happiness. Great wealth can add but little to our enjoyments; domestic happiness, you will allow, is cheaply bought, as far as money is concerned, and riches cannot add a great deal to our corporeal enjoyment. The pleasures of sense are wisely limited to narrow boundaries; the epicure has no prolonged gratification in eating; though he may wish for the throat of the crane, he cannot obtain it; neither does he enjoy his expensive delicacies more than the day-laborer does his simple fare. Of all the sources of happiness in this world, overgrown wealth has the least that is real; and from my own observation, I should think it the most unproductive source of satisfaction to the possessor. I have heard of many very wealthy men that have tormented themselves with the fear of coming to actual want, but I never heard of one man in moderate circumstances that was afflicted with this monomania.”

“You talk like a philosopher,” said Mr. Draper, laughing, “who means to live all his life in his tub. However, I assure you that I do not intend always to pursue this course of hurry and business; in a very short time, I expect to agree with you that I am rich enough; now, my only desire is to hasten that period, that I may devote myself to my family.”

“Is it possible,” said Howard, “that this incessant toil is to purchase a blessing which is already within your grasp! At least I hope you mean to devote yourself to your family now, for a few days.”

“I regret to say,” said Mr. Draper, “that I must be off early to-morrow morning. But I am thinking, as my wife and children enjoy the country so much, that it is an object for me to purchase a snug little place where they may pass the summer. Do you know of any such near you?”

“Clyde Farm is up for sale,” replied Howard.

“I should like to ride over and see it,” said Mr. Draper, musing.

“Not this morning,” said Howard.

“This afternoon, then, will do as well.”

“No,” said Howard; “this is the only uninterrupted day I have with my family, and it is our regular habit to attend public worship. To-morrow morning we will ride over as early as you please, but to-day I hope you will accept as a day of rest from business.”

Mr. Draper had thought it quite impossible to give a part of the next morning to his family, but he always found time for business. Accordingly, when the morning arrived, they rode over to Clyde Farm.

“I remember that farm perfectly well,” said Mr. Draper; “it was my favorite resort when I was a boy.”

“I remember those times too,” replied Howard, “when I used to lie stretched at full length by the side of the waterfall, getting my amo, amas, and only now and then roused by the distant sound of your gun, which put all the little birds to flight.”

“Has it still that fine run of water?” asked Mr. Draper.

“Precisely the same,” replied Howard; “this very stream that flows through my pasture, and sparkles in the morning sun, comes from old Clyde. Look this way, and see what a leap it takes over those rocks.”

Clyde Farm was just such a spot as a romantic, visionary mind might choose for its vagaries,—such a spot as an elevated, contemplative one might select for its aspirations after higher hopes, which seldom come in the tumult of life. Mr. Draper felt at once that the place was congenial to the taste and habits of his wife; it awoke in his own mind the recollection of his boyish days, and from these he naturally reverted to the days of courtship, when he talked of scenery and prospect as eloquently as Frances. With a light step he followed his brother along the stream that came leaping and bounding from the hills, till they arrived at the still little lake whence it took its course. The mists of the morning had dispersed, and the blue sky and white clouds were reflected from its glassy surface, while on its borders the deep, dark foliage of the woods lay inverted. Both of the brothers stood silent when they reached the edge of the water; both were impressed with the beauty of the scene.

“How delighted Frances would be with this spot!” said Howard. “It is like the calm, tranquil mirror of her own mind, which seems formed to reflect only the upper world, with its glorious firmament. I think we have before us two excellent prototypes of our wives:—while the clear, peaceful lake represents yours, this happy, joyous, busy little stream may be likened to my Charlotte, who goes on her way rejoicing, and diffusing life and animation wherever she bends her course.”

“I wish Frances had a little more of her gayety,” said Mr. Draper.

“Depend upon it,” said Howard, “they will operate favorably on each other. I perceive already a mingling of character. I will venture to predict, Charlotte will have a boat with its gay streamers winding the shore before long, and persuade her sister to become the ‘Lady of the Lake.’”

The matter was soon decided; the sisters visited the place, and were enchanted with it; and Howard was authorized by his brother to make the purchase.

The house had been built many years. It was irregular in its form, and certainly belonged to no particular order of architecture. There was a large dining-room, and doors that opened upon the green, and plenty of small rooms; in short, it was just such a house as Frances fancied; it was picturesque, and looked, she said, “as if it had grown and shot out here and there like the old oaks around it.”

Charlotte begged that on herself might devolve the care of furnishing it. “I know better than you,” said she, “what will save trouble. Banish brass and mahogany; admit nothing that requires daily labor to make it fine and showy. I do not despair of setting you up a dairy, and teaching you to churn your own butter.” She truly loved and honored her sister-in-law, and trembled for her life, which she was persuaded she held by a frail tenure. She was eager to prevent her returning to the city during the warm season, and readily undertook to go herself and make all necessary arrangements. Frances furnished her with a list, and left much discretionary power to her agent.

In the course of a few days she returned.—“We must be at Clyde Farm to-morrow,” said she, “to receive the goods and chattels of which I am only the precursor. Your husband enters warmly into the furnishing of your country residence, and therefore we must let him have a voice in it. His taste is not so simple as ours, so we must admit some of the finery of the town house; pier and chimney glasses are to be sent from it. I did not make much opposition to this, for they will not only reflect our rustic figures within, but the trees and grass without. How I long to have haying-time come! You must ride from the fields with your children, as I do, on a load of hay, when the work of the day is over, and look down upon all the world. O Frances,” added she, “if we could only persuade your husband to turn farmer, our victory would be complete.”

“It will never be,” said Frances.

“I don’t know that,” replied Charlotte; “he seemed to set very little value on the city residence, and would fain have stripped his elegant rooms to dignify your rustic retreat; but I would not consent to the migration of a particle of gilding or damask, but told him he might send the marble slabs, with the mirrors,—and I speak for one of the slabs for the dairy. But I have been more thoughtful for you than you have for yourself: look at this list of books that I have ordered.”

Frances was surprised; she had never seen Charlotte with a book in her hand, and she candidly expressed her astonishment that, amidst all her hurry, she had remembered books.

“Where do you think I acquired all my knowledge,” said Charlotte, “if I never open a book? But you are half right; I certainly do not patronize book-making; and yet all summer I am reading the book of Nature. I open it with the first snow-drop and crocus which peeps from under her white robe; and then, when she puts on her green mantle, strewed with

‘The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose,’

I study the lilies of the field. Depend upon it, there is more wisdom without doors than we can find within,—more wisdom there than in books.”

“I believe it,” said Frances; “all nature speaks of the Creator,—of the one great Mind which formed this endless variety, and can give life to the most insignificant flower that grows by the way-side.”

“I should like to know what flower you call insignificant,” said Charlotte; “not this little houstonia, I hope; that has a perfection of organization in which many of your splendid green-house flowers are deficient. But that is the way with us: we call those things sublime which are on a large scale, because they are magnified to our narrow minds, and we can comprehend them without any trouble.—But I must not display all my wisdom to you at once—how, like Solomon of old, I can speak of trees, from ‘the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall.’—And now, fair sister,

‘Up, up, and quit your books,’

and come with me to one of my studios—namely, my poultry-yard. I hear the bipeds clamorous for their supper.”

“This is the woman,” thought Frances, “that I have sometimes wondered Howard, with his reflecting mind, could select as his partner for life! Because I saw her, like the Deity she worships, attending to the most minute affairs, I foolishly imagined she comprehended no others.”

From this time the two sisters resembled in union Shakspeare’s twin cherries growing on one stem.