her own troubles to look up with an open, eager face again.
“She was so patient, other people were ashamed to complain of
their small worries; so cheerful, that her own great one grew
lighter; so industrious, that she made both money and friends by
pretty things she worked and sold to her many visitors. And, best
of all, so wise and sweet that she seemed to get good out of
everything, and make her poor room a sort of chapel where people
went for comfort, counsel, and an example of a pious life. So, you
see, Lucinda was not so very miserable after all.”
“Well, if I could not be as I was, I’d like to be a woman like that.
Only, I hope I shall not!” answered Jill, thoughtfully at first, then
coming out so decidedly with the last words that it was evident the
life of a bedridden saint was not at all to her mind.
“So do I; and I mean to believe that you will not. Meantime, we
can try to make the waiting as useful and pleasant as possible. This
painful little back will be a sort of conscience to remind you of
what you ought to do and leave undone, and so you can be learning
obedience. Then, when the body is strong, it will have formed a
good habit to make duty easier; and my Lucinda can be a sweet
example, even while lying here, if she chooses.”
“Can I?” and Jill’s eyes were full of softer tears as the comfortable,
cheering words sank into her heart, to blossom slowly by and by
into her life, for this was to be a long lesson, hard to learn, but very
useful in the years to come.
When the boys returned, after the Latin was recited and peace
restored, Jack showed her a recovered stamp promptly paid by
Frank, who was as just as he was severe, and Jill asked for the old
red one, though she did not tell why she wanted it, nor show it put
away in the spelling-book, a little seal upon a promise made to be
kept.
Merry and Molly Now let us see how the other missionaries got
on with their tasks.
Farmer Grant was a thrifty, well-to-do man, anxious to give his
children greater advantages than he had enjoyed, and to improve
the fine place of which he was justly proud. Mrs. Grant was a
notable housewife, as ambitious and industrious as her husband,
but too busy to spend any time on the elegancics of life, though
always ready to help the poor and sick like a good neighbor and
Christian woman. The three sons–Tom, Dick, and Harry–were big
fellows of seventeen, nineteen, and twenty-one; the first two on the
farm, and the elder in a store just setting up for himself.
Kind-hearted but rough-mannered youths, who loved Merry very
much, but teased her sadly about her “fine lady airs,” as they called
her dainty ways and love of beauty.
Merry was a thoughtful girl, full of innocent fancies, refined tastes,
and romantic dreams, in which no one sympathized at home,
though she was the pet of the family. It did seem, to an outsider, as
if the delicate little creature had got there by mistake, for she
looked very like a tea-rose in a field of clover and dandelions,
whose highest aim in life was to feed cows and help make root
beer.
When the girls talked over the new society, it pleased Merry very
much, and she decided not only to try and love work better, but to
convert her family to a liking for pretty things, as she called her
own more cultivated tastes.
“I will begin at once, and show them that I don’t mean to shirk my
duty, though I do want to be nice,” thought she, as she sat at supper
one night and looked about her, planning her first move.
Not a very cheering prospect for a lover of the beautiful, certainly,
for the big kitchen, though as neat as wax, had nothing lovely in it,
except a red geranium blooming at the window. Nor were the
people all that could be desired, in some respects, as they sat about