plain that I was failing; and my aunt interrupted the lessons, and took me again to watering-places at the North, from one to another, giving me as much change as possible. It was good for me to be taken off study, which Miss Pinshon had pressed and crowded during the winter. Sea bathing did me good, too; and the change of scene and habits was useful. I did not rise to the level of enjoying anything much; only the sea waves when I was in them; at other times I sat on the bank and watched the distant smokestack of a steamer going out, with an inexpressible longing and soreness of heart. Going where I would so like to go! But there was no word of that. And indeed it would not have been advisable to take me to China. I did think Egypt would not have been bad for me; but it was a thought which I kept shut up in the farthest stores of my heart.
The sea voyage however was delayed. My mother took sick, was very ill, and then unable to undertake the going to China. My father chose to wait for her; so the summer was spent by them in Switzerland and the autumn in Paris. With the first of the New Year they expected now to sail. It suddenly entered my Aunt Gary's head that it was a good time for her to see Paris; and she departed, taking Ransom with her, whom my father wished to place in a German university, and meantime in a French school. Preston had been placed at the Military Academy at West Point, my aunt thinking that it made a nice finishing of a gentleman's education, and would keep him out of mischief till he was grown to man's estate. I was left alone with Miss Pinshon to go back to Magnolia and take up my old life there.
CHAPTER VII.
SINGLEHANDED.
AS my aunt set sail for the shores of Europe, and Miss Pinshon and I turned our faces towards Magnolia, I seemed to see before me a weary winter. I was alone now; there was nobody to take my part in small or great things; my governess would have her way. I was so much stronger now that no doubt she thought I could bear it. So it was. The full tale of studies and tasks was laid on me; and it lay on me from morning till night.
I had expected that. I had looked also for the comfort and refreshment of ministering to my poor friends in the kitchen on the Sunday evenings. I began as usual with them. But as the Sundays came round, I found now and then a gap or two in the circle; and the gaps as time went on did not fill up; or if they did they were succeeded by other gaps. My hearers grew fewer, instead of more; the fact was undoubted. Darry was always on the spot; but the two Jems not always, and Pete was not sure, and Eliza failed sometimes, and others; and this grew
worse. Moreover, a certain grave and sad air replaced the enjoying, almost jocund, spirit of gladness which used to welcome me and listen to the reading and join in the prayers and raise the song. The singing was not less good than it used to be; but it fell oftener into the minor key, and then poured along with a steady, powerful volume, deepening and steadying as it went, which somehow swept over my heart like a wind from the desert. I could not well tell why, yet I felt it trouble me; sometimes my heart trembled with the thrill of those sweet and solemn vibrations. I fancied that Darry's prayer had a somewhat different atmosphere from the old. Yet when I once or twice asked Margaret the next morning why such and such a one had not been at the reading, she gave me a careless answer, that she supposed Mr. Edwards had found something for them to do.
"But at night, Margaret?" I said. "Mr. Edwards cannot keep them at work at night."