“I will wait one more week, and then I must decide,” she said to herself, with a sigh, as she rose from her sunny hillock and prepared to take her way back into Bratley village again.
Then she remembered her father’s words about seeking Heavenly guidance in the grave decisions of life. Truly Parson Hamblyn had not lived or preached in vain; his teaching remained alive and vigorous long after he himself was dead.
“Seek prayerfully to be led aright, dear little Nell; and when the guidance comes, don’t kick against it,” he used to say. The tears of tender, loving regret arose in her eyes as she recalled the wasted form and pale face of her father as she used to see him in those sad far-off days just before he died.
Then a smile twitched at her lips, for she reflected how very much she had been kicking during these last three days against her own disappointment about the higher education.
“It is the laziness of these days that is upsetting me, I believe. I will go up to Camp’s Gulch and see Mrs. Peters to-morrow. If I go by the early cars, I can walk over to the Settlement and have a look at poor old Mrs. Trip and Joey,” she said to herself, thinking how strange it seemed to have time and ability to go about here and there as fancy might dictate.
Mrs. Nichols highly applauded the idea of a visit to Camp’s Gulch. The difficulty had been to induce Nell to go anywhere, and it was plainly not good for her to sit about brooding on the problem of what she could or could not do.
It was considerable promotion for Sam Peters, baggage-clerk and pointsman of Bratley, to be station-master at Camp’s Gulch, and there might have been some truth in what Mrs. Nichols said about his having been chosen for the post because of his numerous family. Mrs. Peters was tremendously pleased at the improvement in her husband’s position, and would persist in declaring that they owed it all to dear Miss Hamblyn, which was, of course, rather embarrassing to Nell.
She travelled up by the early cars next morning, and received a warm welcome from Sam and his wife. It gave her quite a thrill to see the place again, and to think of all the excitement and strain of the adventurous night which had terminated her residence there and cut short her career as a telegraph operator. But already changes were coming, and two more wooden houses were being erected just beyond the big shed, on the Settlement road.
“Why, it will be quite like a town presently, with gas-lamps and asphalted side-walks,” laughed Nell, when she saw the wooden frames of the new houses. “But who is going to live in them?”
“That is what we want to know,” said Mrs. Peters, as she jogged her baby up and down in her arms to give it a little exercise, while the small child who had been the baby previously clung to her skirts, whimpering to be carried also.