A Red Wallflower

by Susan Warner

'What do you mean by a "failure," Mrs. Chatsworth?' the other girl asked.

'Oh, just a failure! Turning out nothing, coming to nothing; nothing, I mean, that is satisfying. "Tout lasse,—tout casse,—tout passe!" A true record; but isn't it sorrowful?'

'I do not think it need be true,' said Esther.

'It is not true with you?'

'No, certainly not.'

'Your smile says more than your words. What a smile! My dear, I envy you. And yet I do not. You have got to wake up from all that. You are seventeen, eighteen—nineteen, is it?—and you have not found out yet that the world is hollow and your doll stuffed with sawdust.'

'But the world is not all.'

'Isn't it? What is?'

'The Lord said, "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life."'

'Everlasting life! In the next world! Oh yes, my dear, but I was speaking of life now.'