"Hush! Sara," laying a hand on her young friend who was quivering with feeling, "I understand it all; you think the Lord has put you into a niche where you do not belong, for which you have no fitness. Are you sure you know more than your Maker? Perhaps He sees that, by clipping a bit here, or adding a trait there, you will be exactly the one for this niche. Why don't you try and help this beautiful plan, instead of hindering it?" Then, with a quick change of tone, "Well, good-night, daughter; remember the first meeting of our circle next Thursday: I shall depend upon you!" and she hurried in, not giving time for another word.
CHAPTER XII.
NEW FORTUNES.
Sara went home with slow steps, and a questioning heart.
"Am I cold and proud?" she thought. "Is it wrong to be indifferent to these petty things about me, and to love books better than people? Do I look for defects rather than virtues, I wonder? Oh, dear; how much harder it is to be right than to _do right in this hard world!"
She opened the cottage door, and saw a sight that drove away all other thoughts; for there sat Uncle Jabez Wanamead in close conversation with Morton, while Molly, open-mouthed, was holding baby, and drinking in every word. It was a great shock to Sara; for having returned to the battle with her brother, fresh-armed with authority, after Glendenning's departure, she had made such an impression upon him that she supposed he had entirely given up his dream of being a fisherman, and was now only thinking of a flitting to Boston. But, evidently, from his flushed, interested face at present all her labor was in vain. Uncle Jabez rose awkwardly as she entered, with a "Good-evenin', Sairay, thort I'd call 'round a spell."
"Good-evening," she said, constraining herself to be pleasant. "It is growing warmer out."
"Yaas, looks like a break-up, some, makes a feller think o' the Banks these days. Thort I'd see what Mort hed laid aout to do 'bout shippin' 'long o' me."
"He is not going," said Sara promptly. "I have other plans for him," with a beseeching look at the boy, who avoided her eye.
"Wall, in course, jest es ye say, but I do s'pose, ef Reub Olmstead was alive naow, his word would be go."