'Poor Lucy!' sighed Helen.
'Dreadful!' said Anne.
'And how can anyone say that Lucy is not one of the noblest, most self-devoted creatures upon earth?' exclaimed Helen, with tears in her eyes; 'there she is, bearing all that terrible scolding, rather than say it was Harriet's fault, as everyone knows it was. I am sure no one is like Lucy. And this is going on continually about something or other.'
'How can she exist?' said Anne.
'With her acute feelings and painful timidity,' said Helen, 'it is worse for her than it would be for anyone else, yet how gently and simply she bears it all! and old Mrs. Hazleby says that she is often ill after these scoldings, and she would have taken her away to live with her, as the Major proposed, after Miss Dorothea Hazleby died, but that she thought it would be taking away all the comfort of her father's life. Oh! Anne,' cried Helen, walking up and down the room as Mrs. Hazleby's voice became louder and louder, 'I cannot bear it; what shall I do? Oh! if it was but right, if it would not make it worse for Lucy, I could, I would go out and tell Mrs. Hazleby what everybody thinks of her.'
'I do not wonder that Miss Hazleby was ready to do almost anything to avoid such a scene,' said Anne.
'Mean selfish creature!' said Helen; 'she ran away on purpose that Lucy might stay and bear all this. Anne, I do believe that if martyrs are made, and crowns are gained, by daily sufferings and hourly self-denial, that such a crown will be dear dear Lucy's.'
Anne's answer was—
'And all the happy souls that rode
Transfigured through that fresh abode,
Had heretofore in humble trust,
Shone meekly 'mid their native dust,
The glow-worms of the earth!'
'Thank you, Anne,' said Helen, wiping away her tears; 'I will think of Lucy as the light, the glow-worm of her family. Thank you; the thought of her meek clear light in darkness need not be gloomy, as it has been.'