Jane was a gentle affectionate girl; and there was a new feeling at the heart of Harriet from the day in which she came under her influence. Before the week had half expired which Jane was to spend with them, Harriet, with characteristic decision, avowed her determination to accompany her. Her father and mother had opposed her will in but few instances. In these few she had laughed them into an easy compliance. In the present case she found her task a more difficult one. But they consented at last; and with her mother's tearful blessing, and an injunction from her father not to bear any insolence from her employers, but to remember always that she was the independent daughter of an independent farmer, she left her home.
CHAPTER II.
A year passed by, and our Harriet was a totally changed being, in intellect and deportment. Her cousins boarded in a small family, that they might have a better opportunity of pursuing their studies during their leisure hours. She was their constant companion. At first she did not open a book; and numberless were the roguish artifices she employed to divert the attention of her cousins from theirs. They often laid them aside for a lively chat with her; and then urged her to study with them. She loved them ardently. To her affection she at last yielded, and not to any anticipations of pleasure or profit in the results, for she had been educated to believe that there was none of either.
Charles had been studying Latin and mathematics; Jane, botany, geology, and geography of the heavens. She instructed Charles in these latter sciences; he initiated her as well as he might, into the mysteries of hic, hæc, hoc, and algebra. At times of recitation, Harriet sat and laughed at their "queer words." When she accompanied them in their search for flowers, she amused herself by bringing mullen, yarrow, and, in one instance, a huge sunflower.—When they had traced constellations, she repeated to them a satire on star-gazers, which she learned of her father.
The histories of the constellations and flowers first arrested her attention, and kindled a romance which had hitherto lain dormant. A new light was in her eye from that hour, and a new charm in her whole deportment. She commenced study under very discouraging circumstances. Of this she was deeply sensible. She often shed a few tears as she thought of her utter ignorance, then dashed them off, and studied with renewed diligence and success. She studied two hours every morning before commencing labor and until half past eleven at night. She took her book and her dinner to the mill, that she might have the whole intermission for study. This short season, with the reflection she gave during the afternoon, was sufficient for the mastery of a hard lesson. She was close in her attendance at the sanctuary. She joined a Bible class; and the teachings there fell with a sanctifying influence on her spirit, subduing but not destroying its vivacity, and opening a new current to her thoughts and affections. Although tears of regret for misspent years often stole down her cheeks, she assured Jane that she was happier at the moment than in her hours of loudest mirth.
Her letters to her friends had prepared them for a change, but not for such a change—so great and so happy. She was now a very beautiful girl, easy and graceful in her manners, soft and gentle in her conversation, and evidently conscious of her superiority, only to feel more humble, more grateful to Heaven, her dear cousins, her minister, her Sabbath school teacher, and other beloved friends, who by their kindness had opened such new and delightful springs of feeling in her heart.
She flung her arms around her mother's neck, and wept tears of gratitude and love. Mrs. Greenough felt that she was no longer alone in the world; and Mr. Greenough, as he watched them—the wife and the daughter—inwardly acknowledged that there was that in the world dearer to his heart than his farm and his independence.
Amongst Harriet's baggage was a rough deal box. This was first opened. It contained her books, a few minerals and shells. There were fifty well-selected volumes, besides a package of gifts for her father, mother, and brother.—There was no book-case in the house; and the kitchen shelf was full of old almanacs, school books, sermons, and jest books. Mr. Greenough rode to the village, and returned with a rich secretary, capacious enough for books, minerals, and shells. He brought the intelligence, too, that a large party of students and others were to spend the evening with them. Harriet's heart beat quick, as she thought of young Curtis, and wondered if he was among the said students.—Before she left Bradford, struck with the beauty and simplicity of her appearance, he sought and obtained an introduction to her, but left her side, after sundry ineffectual attempts to draw her into conversation, disappointed and disgusted. He was among Harriet's visitors.
"Pray, Miss Curtis, what may be your opinion of our belle, Miss Greenough?" asked young Lane, on the following morning, as Mr. Curtis and his sister entered the hall of the academy.
"Why, I think that her improvement has been astonishingly rapid during the past year; and that she is now a really charming girl."