"To England! Why should you go? Have you friends there more dear than those you will leave behind?" questioned the youth, anxiously.
"I have no friends there, but many duties," said Barbara, and her voice trembled painfully. "When I leave these shores, every living being that I love will be left behind."
"Why go, then? Why abandon those who regard you tenderly, for a land that contains no friends?"
Barbara turned pale as she looked down into those beautiful, eager eyes.
"Because," she said, extending her hand toward the ocean, "because that must roll between us and—and this continent, before I can fall into the heavy rest, which is all I hope or ask for now."
"But why go away? This is a new country; a mind and energy like yours may find ample scope for exertion here. Become the missionary of intelligence. We have school-houses, but few teachers. What grand men and noble women would be given to the world, from a teacher at once so strong and so gentle."
Barbara smiled a little proudly. The idea of becoming a school-teacher in one of the colonies had evidently never entered her mind.
Norman saw the smile and blushed.
"You think it a humble means of good," he said, "and are, perhaps, offended with me for naming it. But Governor Phipps thinks it a calling of the utmost importance in these settlements. He says that the man, or woman, who gives wisdom and Christianity to our little ones, holds an office higher than that of any judge or statesman in the land."
Barbara gazed wistfully in Norman's face, while he was speaking. An earnest gleam came into her eyes, and her lips began to quiver. Why was her voice so like a hoarse whisper when she spoke?