"That was a piece of Ellen Morris' grandiloquence. Do you know, I envy that girl her faculty of creating mirth wherever she goes!"
"I had rather be Emma Glenn," said Carry. "One is witty, the other affectionate, and they will receive respectively admiration and love."
"I do not quite agree with you. Ellen's high spirits will carry her through many a sharp battle, from which Emma's sensitive nature would never recover. To combat with the world one should have no heart; and I heard a clergyman once say that a woman had no use for sense."
Carry laughed. "Between you, you would represent us as a superfluous creation. Yet woman has her sphere, no less than man; and if he conquers in his by might of purpose and brute strength, she guides, instead of rules in hers, by love and submission. As for the world, that semi-fabulous ogre, supposed to live somewhere, all out of doors, whose cold charities are proverbial; who eats up widow's houses, and grinds the poor; we have no dealings with it. It is, to my notion, an innocent bugbear, kept by the men, to prevent us from meddling in their business matters; and to melt flinty-hearted wives into pity for one, who has been fighting this monster all day, and has now to drink smoked tea, and eat burnt toast for supper."
"Are you ever sad?" questioned Ida.
"Not often, why do you ask?"
"You appear so light-hearted. I was at a loss to determine whether it was natural or feigned."
"My spirits are good, chiefly from habit, I believe. My father is remarkably cheerful. It is a maxim of his, that we are unjust, when we cause others to do penance for our humors; they have trouble enough of their own to bear. Controlling the manifestations of temper and discontent, is generally followed by the suppression of the feelings themselves. It has been so with me."
"See that burlesque of life!" said Ida, pointing. "Children turning somersets upon a tomb-stone!"
The tomb was built with four brick walls, supporting a horizontal tablet; and upon this flat surface, the irreverent youngsters were gambolling. One, the most agile, and the leader of the troop, was, as she spoke, in the act of performing a vehemently encored feat, viz.: throwing two somersets upon the marble, another in transitu for the ground, and a fourth, after landing upon the turf. Two were accomplished in safety, the third was a flying leap, and he did not move afterwards. The children screamed, and the girls ran to the spot. In falling, he had struck his head against a stone, and was senseless, the blood gushing from a wound in, or near the temple. Carry rested his head upon her arm, and with nervous haste, unbuttoned his collar. "Where are his parents?" inquired Ida. But they only cried the louder. "I fear he is killed!" said Carry. Ida shook her purse at the terrified group. "Who will bring me a doctor,—who, his mother?" Her collected manner tended to quiet them, as much as the clink of coin. Half-a-dozen scampered in as many directions, and she ordered the rest off, without ceremony. There was no rebellion. Each had a misgiving that he was to blame for the casualty, and they were glad to skulk away.