"My dear, I don't like that little line between your eyes; it looks like discontent; or is it only study?"
Sara flushed.
"Something of both, perhaps."
"Smooth it out, child, smooth it out! No one can hope for wisdom until he has learned patience; now is your time to cultivate your own. Did you ever see a mountain top that could be reached without a hard scramble, Sara?"
"I never saw a mountain top at all, Miss Prue," smiling whimsically.
The elder woman laughed.
"Then you have so much the more in store for you; for I'm sure you will see one some day, if it is only the Delectable Mountains above. Meanwhile, climb on, and keep looking up."
"I'll try," said Sara humbly, and took her departure, comforted and inspired, as always, by this cheery old maid, whose lover had lain over twenty years beneath the waves, never forgotten, never replaced, in the strong, true heart of his unmarried widow.
When Sara reached home she found need for her patience at once, for the baby was crying, and her mother looked cross and fretful.
"Wall," she said in her shrillest tone, as the door closed behind the girl, "you've come at last, hev you? An' another book, I'll be bound! Pity you couldn't turn into one, yourself; you'd be about as much use as now, I guess!"
"Then we'd both be 'bound,' mother, wouldn't we?" trying to speak lightly. "Give baby to me, won't you, you're tired."