"Not very well."
"Then, why stay? Why not find some other home?"
"I don't think it is time yet," she replied.
"I don't understand you. I wish—Rachel, can't you make a friend of me, since you have no other?"
"I will tell you as well as I can," she replied, "what my mother used to say. She said we must act rightly."
"That is true," I replied; "and what else did she say?"
"She said, that that would only be the outside life, but the inside life must be right too, must be pure and strong, and that the way to make it pure and strong was to learn to bear."
"Still," I urged, "I wish you would find a better home. You cannot learn to bear any more patiently than you do."
She shook her head.
"That shows that you don't know," she answered. "It seems to me right to remain. Why, you know they can't hurt me any. Suppose they scold me when I am not to blame, and my temper rises,—for I am very quick-tempered"—