“It isn’t that I think Eunice needs me at home, if that is what you mean.”
“Yes; you know I will take good care of her. I love her, and I have nursed sick folks before. She’ll miss you? Yes; but then she has set her heart on your getting the good of another year at the seminary, and she may feel worse about your having to lose that than about her having to lose your company. And she begins this winter with better health and better courage than she did last winter.”
“And do you think I would have gone away last winter if I had known? I know she has you now. Yes, Aunt Ruby, it is of myself I am thinking. She is all I’ve got, and I must stay with her while she is here. Months or years—what is the difference?”
“I understand your feeling.” There was a long silence, and then Mrs Stone added—“I don’t know that I am capable of realising all the good a year at the seminary would do you. I think you couldn’t fail to get much good for this world, and for the next as well, from the company of your sister. But if she has set her heart on your going away, I don’t see but you must go, dear.”
“I cannot, Aunt Ruby.”
“I know that’s your feeling. But you mustn’t be wilful about it, Fidelia.”
“I cannot go.”
“Have you spoken to Dr Everett?”
“Yes, but he didn’t help me any.”
“Well, I don’t see but you’ll have to talk to Eunice about it. Only you must make up your mind to do just as she says. And you must lay it all before the Lord. It is His will you must seek to know.”