"Tut, tut, boy! Don't you read your Bible? Away back in Solomon's time, it's written, 'Who can find a virtuous woman? Her price is above rubies.' Are rubies found without looking for them, and do diamonds lie about the street? Now, just attend to my words—brave men make noble women, and noble women make brave men. Be a true man first, and some day a true woman will be given you. Yes, a woman whose opinion of you will hold you up if all the world were against you, and whose 'Well done!' will be a better thing to come home to, than the senseless shouting of the world who scream for this thing to-day and that to-morrow."
By this time the horse had turned up the lane, and my mother stood smiling in the door. I marked the soft white hair that shone like a moonlight glory round her head, and prayed inwardly that the heavens would spare her yet a little longer.
CHAPTER X
COUSIN CAROLINE.
"You must go and see your cousin Caroline," said my mother, the first evening after I got home; "you've no idea how pretty she's grown."
"She's what I call a pattern girl," said my uncle Jacob, "a girl that can make the most of life."
"She is a model housekeeper and manager," said Aunt Polly.