"Understood, my dear! if I appeared disagreeable and selfish. That was my dark age, Emma. How much has transpired since! how much of sorrow--how much of joy!" "You are not unhappy now!" said Emma, in a tone of surprised inquiry. "No, my love! happy and busy--and thankful for my Father's love and favors--not the least of which is His gift of a companion." Carry had asked her a similar question during her first summer at Poplar grove--with what different emotions she had replied! "But," she resumed, "the unbending will is not dead yet. Dr. Hall and lady called on me to-day, and I unfolded our prospectus of a Sabbath-school. The doctor pursed up his mouth in his quizzical way. 'The Church is four miles from you.' "'But only three from _you_,' said I. "'There is preaching there, on an average, two Sabbaths in a month. Will not that interfere with your instructions?' "'Not at all, sir. We shall be through by the hour for public worship.' '"But there will not be time to go to another church, where there is no service.' "'Can't help it, sir. We must go home and read a sermon, seasoned by the consciousness of duty performed.' "'You have a school-mania;' said he. "'The grown trees are so stubbornly crooked, that I have no hope but in the twigs.' "'A fair hit, doctor!' said Mrs. Hall. 'Submit with a good grace. He was wishing, the other day, for something to keep 'idle men' and children off of 'Satan's ground.' He is feigning objections, Ida.' '"A bad game, doctor,' answered I. 'We _will_ have the school, and what is more,--you for superintendent.' "He remonstrated now in earnest, but we out-talked him. He and Mr. Latham are to circulate the information, and solicit aid and scholars." "Who says unmarried women can do nothing in the work of the world's reformation?" said Emma. "How many in your situation, would be wrapped up in self, with a churlish delight that the claims of their fellow-creatures upon them were so feeble." "A woman's heart, in its healthy state, must have something to love;" returned Ida. "The fountain is perennial, so long as its waters are drawn off. Stop their outgoings--stagnation--poisonous miasma--dryness ensue. The more we have to love, the better we feel--the better we _are_, Emma--for the closer is our approximation to the Being, who is all love!" "This time, a year ago, I was disposed to think that in the economy of His Providence, crosses and trials were all His children's portion in this life. Sweetly has He rebuked my want of faith!" said Emma.