Mrs. Saunders was a good deal surprised, but she did not suffer keenly from the disappointment which she had innocently done her best to bring upon her daughter. Cornelia, who had been the passive instrument of her romance, did not suffer from it at all, having always objected to the thickness of the young man's hands, and to the early baldness which gave him the Shakespearian brow he had so little use for. She laughed his memory to scorn, and employed the episode as best she could in quelling her mother's simple trust of passing strangers. They worked along together, in the easy, unambitious village fashion, and kept themselves in the average comfort, while the time went by and Cornelia had grown from a long, lean child to a tall and stately young girl, who carried herself with so much native grace and pride that she had very little attention from the village youth. She had not even a girl friendship, and her chief social resource was in her intimacy at the Burtons. She borrowed books of them, and read a good deal; and when she was seventeen she rubbed up her old studies and got a teacher's certificate for six months, and taught a summer term in a district at Burnt Pastures. She came home in the fall, and when she called at the Burtons' to get a book, as usual, Mrs. Burton said, "Nelie, you're not feeling very well, are you? Somehow you looked fagged." "Well, I do feel queer," said the girl. "I seem to be in a kind of dream. It--scares me. I'm afraid I'm going to be sick." "Oh, I guess not," Mrs. Burton answered comfortably. "You're just tired out. How did you like your school?" "I hated it," said the girl, with a trembling chin and wet eyes. "I don't believe I'm fit for teaching. I won't try it any more; I'll stay at home and help mother." "You ought to keep up your drawing," said Mrs. Burton in general admonition. "Do you draw any now?" "Nothing much," said the girl. "I should think you would, to please your mother. Don't you care anything for it yourself?" "Yes; but I haven't the courage I had when I thought I knew it all. I don't think I should ever amount to anything. It would be a waste of time." "I don't think so," said Mrs. Burton. "I believe you could be a great artist." The girl laughed. "What ever became of that painter who visited you year before last at fair time?" "Mr. Ludlow? Oh, he's in New York. _He_ thought your sketches were splendid, Nelie." "He said the girls half-killed themselves there studying art." "Did he?" demanded Mrs. Burton with a note of wrath in her voice. "Mm. He told mother so that day." "He had no business to say such a thing before you. Was that what discouraged you?" "Oh, I don't know. I got discouraged. Of course, I should like to please mother. How much do you suppose it would cost a person to live in New York? I don't mean take a room and board yourself; I shouldn't like to do that; but everything included."