"I understand your feeling." There was a long silence, and then Mrs Stone added--"I don't know that I am capable of realising all the good a year at the seminary would do you. I think you couldn't fail to get much good for this world, and for the next as well, from the company of your sister. But if she has set her heart on your going away, I don't see but you must go, dear." "I cannot, Aunt Ruby." "I know that's your feeling. But you mustn't be wilful about it, Fidelia." "I cannot go." "Have you spoken to Dr Everett?" "Yes, but he didn't help me any." "Well, I don't see but you'll have to talk to Eunice about it. Only you must make up your mind to do just as she says. And you must lay it all before the Lord. It is His will you must seek to know." "You will have to do that for me, Aunt Ruby. I don't seem to have any right to do that." "Because you can't submit. But, child, you may set your heart on getting your own will, and you may get it; and, if you do, it will be bitterness to you. Give up your will to be guided by the Lord, and then you will know what it is to be content." "How can it be His will that I should leave her who has been more than a mother to me all my life, now that she is so near--Oh, Aunt Ruby, I cannot go!" To say that Fidelia was heart-sick these days, is not saying too much. She grieved over Eunice; and all her sorrow and her love were embittered by the memory of the "bad dream" which would return; and she hated it and herself, traitor as she called herself. She did not sleep at night, and she was restless and listless by day; her face grew pale, and her eyes grew large and full of anxious pain; and her sister, who had watched her through it all, could keep silence no longer, and so she spoke. Fidelia had come down as usual with her book in her hand, but, seated at the window, with her eyes on the fading vine-leaves that fluttered about it, she seemed to have forgotten her book and the reading which Eunice had prepared herself to hear. "Are you ready, dear?" said Eunice. "Ready?" repeated Fidelia. "I don't know. I don't seem to care much about it to-day, or about anything else." "Fidelia, come and sit here by me. Never mind the book, dear. What is it that troubles you? Is it the thought of going away?" "I don't think I can go, Eunice. I don't think I had better go." "Will you tell me all about it, dear?" said Eunice, speaking very gently. "Come and sit by me." Fidelia rose and went slowly to her sister's side. "For one thing, I don't feel as if I could leave you," said she, putting great restraint upon herself, that she might speak quietly. "Well, and what else?" "I should have to work even harder that I did last year in order to graduate. It is quite doubtful whether I could if I should do my best; and I don't seem to care about it enough to try." "You might feel differently when you were there among the rest of the pupils." Fidelia shook her head.