"You ought to be thankful that you were a hundred miles away from it."
"But surely I might have been of some sort of use. I could have nursed among the wounded--or helped to distribute food to the starving--or read to the dying. I should have found something to do, and have done it."
"Still, I cannot help saying that you were much better away. You can form but a faint idea of the terror and agony of that awful time."
"But there were women who went through it all, and why should not I have done the same? My life seems so useless--so purposeless. I feel as if I had been sent into a world where there was nothing left for me to do."
"So long as poverty and sickness, want and misery abound, there is surely enough to do for earnest workers of every kind."
"But how to set about doing it? I feel as if my hands were tied, and as if I could not cut the cord that binds me."
"And yet your life is not without its interests. Your uncle, for instance----"
"You have heard about my uncle!" she said, in her quick way, looking at him with a little surprise.
"Yes, I have heard of Mr. Denison, of Heron Dyke. There is nothing very strange in that."
"Ah, yes, I think I am of some use to him," said Ella, softly. "I could not leave Uncle Gilbert for anything or anybody. And I have my school in the village, and two or three poor old people to look after. My life is not altogether an empty one; but what I do seems so small and trifling in comparison with what I think I should like to do. After all, these may be only the foolish longings of an ignorant girl who has seen little or nothing of the world."