Margaret M. Robertson

“ You have no grown-up schoolgirls in Old England? Out of New England I don’t suppose we have so very many even in this country; and there are probably more in the seminary over there than in schools generally among us. It was built by special means for a special purpose. A woman built it—a woman who never owned a dollar that she had not first earned—a great and good woman. She gave herself, body, soul, and spirit, to the work of helping her countrywomen—her sisters, she called them all—who were hungering and thirsting, as she herself in her youth had hungered and thirsted, for knowledge. ”

“ I don’t care.”
“I think so too—if you don’t care. Next year Jabez may go too. I only wish he had your chance—and yet I am not sure. He may do all the better for having to work his way through. But for one to have your chance, and not to care for it, that I cannot understand!” added Fidelia gravely.
“My father is not a rich man,” said Amos.
“No—not as Mr Kent is rich. But an education such as he is able and willing to give his boys will be worth more—if they take the good of it—than all Mr Kent’s money would be. You don’t realise, your privileges, young man.” ”

“ No woman can be unhappy whose life is lived not to herself but to others. Her service was truly willing service, and was its own reward. She had cares many and heavy, weary nights and anxious days, but she had kind friends who took care for her and helped her; and her cares, and labours, and daily self-denials, and the hourly sight of her grandmother’s faith and patience, and of her joyful release at last, did for heart and soul more than many prosperous years of untroubled happiness could have done. ”

“ And yet it must make a difference to live such a life as most of these people lived—a life without hard work or pressing care, with time to enjoy reading, and study, and travel, with a chance to enjoy the sight of all that is grand and beautiful in nature and art. Even Eunice, good, and sweet, and superior to most people as she was—even Eunice would have been a little different in such a life.
Standing at the other end of the living room, smiling down upon Miss Avery, who had touched his arm to attract his attention, stood Dr Justin Everett. ”

“ And Fidelia herself began to think this possible.
“I like it, Eunice. I feel that I can teach those things that I know well. And, when I have learned more, I hope I shall be successful in higher teaching.”
“If there is any teaching higher, in the best sense, than the teaching of the little children,” replied her sister. “Remember, it is easier to bend the twig than the tall sapling; and what you teach them out of their school-books makes but a small part of what they must learn from you.” ”

“ From the far north flows the Connecticut River broadening on its way, as Green Mountain and White send down on either hand, from melting snow-drifts and hidden springs, their tribute to its waters. Through forests and broken hill country, through meadows, sometimes broad and sometimes narrow, past town and village and lonely farmhouse, it flows before it makes a bend to pass between Mounts Tom and Holyoke, but in all its course it flows through no fairer landscape than that which spreads itself around the base of these two historic mountains. ”

“ For to be successful in good work which one loves, and which one can do well, comes as near to true happiness as most people ever come in this world. Day by day, as time went on, she was permitted to see the springing up of some “plant of grace” from the seed which she had sown; and she had good cause to hope that there were more to follow, for such plants do not die out, but increase, and bear fruit abundantly as the years go by. Once in a while, but not often, she paused amid her work, to ask herself whether she would be quite content in it all her life long. ”

“ When Justin Everett, the doctor’s youngest brother—and, like him, a physician—saw his way open to go West to an uncle, to establish himself with him in his profession, Eunice might have gone with him as his wife, if circumstances at home had been different. But it was impossible. There was no choice to be made, and nothing to be said.
Her grandfather had been stricken helpless, with little hope of ever being otherwise than helpless. Over her grandmother, younger than him by many years, hung an awful dread. She too must die, but she might be years in dying. ”

“ And I have my Sunday-school class, and I can visit my friends, and, though I can never do much at nursing again, I can go to see sick and sorrowful people, and help and comfort them a little perhaps. And I can always speak a word for my Lord and Master. My darling, I can see such a happy, restful life before me!”
“Oh, my Eunice—my Eunice!” Fidelia’s face was hidden again. “A happy life before her!” repeated she; and the thought of her own impatience and discontent, her envyings and her small ambitions, made her ashamed. “Oh, I am not a good girl! I am all wrong, all wrong!” ”

“ Fidelia laughed at the idea of her being too tired to follow the brook—to its source even, if that should be necessary; and she quite won the hearts of the three boys by her delight at the prospect of the day’s pleasure.
“Nellie ought to go,” said Amos. “She would like to go, I’m sure, but she can’t leave her company. They might go too, I suppose; but I guess city girls wouldn’t care about fishing.”
“I think it will be better for us to go by ourselves to-morrow,” said Fidelia. “It doesn’t do for too many people to go fishing together.” ”