As she spoke, a sparrow hopped upon a twig close by her, and cocked his bright eye at her expressively.
"I beg your pardon!" said Hildegarde, humbly. "No doubt you are right, and I am a hundred times more ignorant. I could not even imagine how to build a nest; but neither can you crack a nut—ask Mr. Emerson!—or play the piano."
The sparrow chirped defiance, flirted his tail saucily, and was gone.
"And all girls cannot be students!" said Hildegarde, stopping to address a young maple that looked strong-minded. "Everybody cannot go to college; there must be some who are to be just girls,—plain girls,—and stay at home. As for a girl going to college when there is only herself to—to help make a home—why,—she might as well be Nero, and done with it."
She nodded at the maple-tree, as if she had settled it entirely, and walked on more quickly; the cloud—it was a slight one, but still a cloud—vanished from her brow, leaving it clear and sunny.
"The place one is in," she said, "is the place to be happy in. Of course I do miss them all; of—course—I do! but if ever any girl ought to be thankful on her knees all day long for blessings and happinesses, Hildegarde Grahame, why, you know who she is, and that she does not spell her name Tompkins."