Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
CHAPTER I.
A MOTHER’S INFLUENCE.
“Mother! mother!” exclaimed a sweet, eager voice, and the speaker, a child of thirteen years, burst into the room, where Mrs. Carlton sat at work, “don’t you think there is to be a prize given on exhibition day for the best composition! And I mean to try for it—sha’nt I?”
She was a little, harum-scarum looking imp! I suppose she had run all the way home from school, for her straw bonnet hung on her neck instead of her head, and a profusion of soft dark hair was streaming in such disorder about her glowing face, that you could not tell if she were pretty or not; but you could see a pair of brilliant, gray or blue or black eyes—they certainly changed their color with every new emotion; but I think they were really gray—full of laughter, and love beaming through the truant tresses, and all eloquent with the beauty of a fresh, warm soul. This change in the child’s eyes is no freak of a foolish fancy; for every one noticed it; and her school-crony, Kate Sumner, used to declare, that when Harriet was angry they were black; gray when she was thoughtful; violet when sad; and when happy and loving, they changed to the tenderest blue.
Mrs. Carlton drew the little girl toward her, and smoothed back the rebellious curls, at the same time exclaiming, with a long drawn sigh, “My dear Harriet! how you do look!”
“Oh, mother! it’s not the least matter how I look! If I were only a beauty, now, like Angelina Burton, I would keep my hair as smooth as—as any thing; but I wouldn’t rub my cheeks though, as she does always, just before she goes into a room where there’s company—would you, mother?”
The mother gazed at her child’s expressive face, as she spoke, with its irregular, yet lovely features, the strange, bright eyes, the changing cheek, the full and sweet, but spirited mouth, and said to herself, “Whatever you may think, my darling, I would not change your simple, innocent, childlike unconsciousness, for all Angelina’s beauty, spoiled as it is by vanity and affectation.”
“But, mother, do give me a subject for composition, for I want to write it now, this minute!”
“Harriet,” said Mrs. Carlton quietly, “go and brush your hair, change your shoes, and mend that rent in your dress as neatly as you can.”