I promised, and spoke a few words of cheer to sad-eyed Betty.
“That woman always does try me!” declared Fan. “If I was a minister’s wife she would be a thorn in my side. How many poor, inefficient people there are in this world, and the worst feature appears to be their inability to learn anything! I do not believe they try in good earnest.”
“Yet I feel sorry for her.”
“Well, yes, and the poor sick baby. But if her room had been swept, her dishes taken to the kitchen, and her hair combed, and a collar on, how it would have altered the aspect of the place! And she seems to think every one else in the world has it so much easier.”
“This is one of the places where one must not weary in well-doing, papa would say,” was my rejoinder.
“You are a good little girl, Rose. I have not half your faith or patience. I wonder if I shall be of any real and sensible use in this world?”
“You can try to-morrow. The house will be clean.”
“I am afraid I should not want to go, otherwise,” she returned, laughingly.
The man came over for her the next morning, quite early, having been to the village on business. We felt that she was going off in state, but I suppose it was on account of its being the West Side and the Churchills, for Fan somehow was fortunate in having plenty of rides fall to her share. She uttered a laughing good-bye and they drove away.
It seems odd how one event comes out of another, like the wonderful Chinese transformations. You open a ball and the article inside is one you would never have guessed at. You go to some place, and one trifling incident changes the course of one’s whole life, or a few words that some person utters carelessly brings about a new train of thought and action, and your life is not quite the same afterward.