 CHAPTER 1 January 15, 1831 How dreadfully old I am getting! Sixteen! Well, I don't see as I can help it. There it is in the big Bible in Father's own hand. Catherine, born January 15, 1815. I meant to get up early this morning, but it looked dismally cold out of doors and felt delightfully warm in bed, so I covered myself up and made ever so many good resolutions. I determined, in the first place, to begin this journal, to be sure I have begun half a dozen and got tired of them after a while. Not tired of writing them, but disgusted with what I had to save myself. But this time I mean to go on, in spite of everything. It will do me good to read it over and see what a creature I am. Then I resolved to do more to please Mother than I have done, and I determined to make one more effort to conquer my hasty temper. I thought, too, I would be self-denying this winter, like the people one reads about in books. I fancied how surprised and pleased everybody would be to see me so much improved. Time passed quickly amid these agreeable thoughts, and I was quite startled to hear the bell ring for prayers. I jumped up in a great flurry and dressed as quickly as I could. Everything conspired together to plague me. I could not find a clean collar or a handkerchief. It is always just so. Susan is forever poking my things into out-of-the-way places. When at last I went down they were all at breakfast. I hoped you would celebrate your birthday, dear, by coming down in good season, said Mother. I do hate to be found fault with. So I fired up in an instant. If people hide my things, so I can't find them, of course I have to be late, I said. And I rather think I said it in a very cross way. For Mother sighed a little. I wish Mother wouldn't sigh. I would rather be called names out and out. The moment breakfast was over I had to hurry off to school. Just as I was going out, Mother said, Have you your overshoes, dear? Oh, Mother, don't hinder me. I shall be late, I said. I don't need overshoes. It's snowed all night, and I think you do need them, Mother said. I don't know where they are. I hate overshoes. Do let me go, Mother, I cried. I do wish I could ever have my own way. You shall have it now, my child, Mother said, and went away. Now what was the use of her calling me my child in such a tone I should like to know? I hurried off, and just as I got to the door of the school room, it flashed into my mind that I had not said my prayers. A nice way to begin one's birthday to be sure. Well, I had no time, and perhaps my good resolutions pleased God almost as much as one of my rambling stupid prayers could. For I must own I can't make good prayers. I can't think of anything to say. I often wonder what Mother finds to say when she's shut up by the hour together. I had a pretty good time at school. My teachers praised me, and Amelia seemed so fond of me. She brought me a birthday present of a purse she had knit for me herself and a net for my hair. Nets are just coming in fashion. It will save a good deal of time my having this one. Instead of combing and combing and combing my old hair to get it glossy enough to suit Mother, I can just give it one twist, one squeeze, and the whole thing will be settled for the day. Amelia wrote me a dear little note with her presents. I do really believe she loves me dearly. It is so nice to have people love you. When I got home Mother called me into her room. She looked as if she had been crying. She said I gave her a great deal of pain by my self-will and ill temper and conceit. Conceit! I screamed out, oh Mother, if you only knew how horrid I think I am. Mother smiled a little. Then she went on with her list, till she made me out the worst creature in the world. I burst out crying and was running off to my room, but she made me come back and hear the rest. She said my character would be essentially formed by the time I reached my twentieth year, and left it to me to say, if I wished to be as a woman what I was now as a girl. I felt sulky and would not answer. I was shocked to think I had only got four years in which to improve. But after all, a good deal could be done in that time. Of course I don't want to always be exactly what I am now. Mother went on to say that I had in me the elements of a fine character if I would only conquer some of my faults. You are frank and truthful, she said, and in some things conscientious. I hope you are really a child of God, and are trying to please him. And it is my daily prayer that you may become a lovely, loving, useful woman. I made no answer. I wanted to say something, but my tongue wouldn't move. I was angry with Mother and angry with myself. At last everything came out all in a rush, mixed up with such floods of tears that I thought Mother's heart would melt and that she would take back what she had said. Amelia's mother never talks so to her, I said. She praises her and tells her what a comfort she is to her. But just as I am trying as hard as I can to be good and making resolutions and all that, you scold me and discourage me. Mother's voice was very soft and gentle, as she asked. Do you call this scolding, my child? And I don't like to be called conceited, I went on. I know I am perfectly horrid, and I am just as unhappy as I can be. I am very sorry for you, dear, Mother replied, but you must bear with me. Other people will see your faults, but only your Mother will have the courage to speak of them. Now go to your own room and wipe away the traces of your tears that the rest of the family may not know that you have been crying on your birthday. She kissed me, but I did not kiss her. I really believe Satan himself hindered me. I ran across the hall to my room, slammed the door and locked myself in. I was going to throw myself on the bed and cry till I was sick. Then I should look pale and tired and they would all pity me. I do so like to be pitied. But on the table by the window I saw a beautiful new desk in place of the old clumsy thing I had been spattering and spoiling so many years. A little note full of love said it was from Mother, and begged me to read and reflect upon a few verses of a tastefully bound copy of the Bible which accompanied it every day of my life. A few verses, she said, carefully read and pondered, instead of a chapter or two read for mere form's sake. I looked at my desk, which contained exactly what I wanted. Plenty of paper, seals, wax and pens. I always use wax. Wafers are vulgar. Then I opened the Bible at random and lighted on these words. Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord doth come. There was nothing very cheering in that. I felt a real repugnance to be always on the watch, thinking I might die at any moment. I am sure I am not fit to die. Besides, I want to have a good time with nothing to worry me. I hope I shall live ever so long. Perhaps in the course of forty or fifty years I may get tired of this world and want to leave it. And I hope by that time I shall be a great deal better than I am now, and fit to go to heaven. I wrote a note to Mother on my new desk, and thanked her for it. I told her she was the best Mother in the world, and I was the worst daughter. When it was done, I did not like it, and so I wrote another. Then I went down to dinner and felt better. We had such a nice dinner. Everything I liked best was on the table. Mother had not forgotten one of all the dainties I like. Amelia was there, too. Mother had invited her to give me a little surprise. It is bed time now, and I must say my prayers and go to bed. I have got all chilled through, writing here in the cold. I believe I will say my prayers in bed, just for this once. I do not feel sleepy, but I am sure I ought not to sit up another moment. January thirtieth. Here I am at my desk once more. There is a fire in my room, and Mother is sitting by it reading. I can't see what the book is, but I have no doubt it is Thomas A. Kempis. How she can go on reading it, so, year after year, I cannot imagine. For my part, I like something new, but I must go back to where I left off. That night when I stopped writing, I hurried to bed as fast as I could, for I felt cold and tired. I remember saying, oh God, I am ashamed to pray. And then I began to think of all the things that had happened that day, and never knew another thing till the rising bell rang, and I found it was morning. I am sure I did not mean to go to sleep. I think now it was wrong for me to be such a coward as to try to say my prayers in bed because of the cold. While I was writing I did not think once how I felt. Well I jumped up as soon as I heard the bell, but found I had a dreadful pain on my side, and a cough. Susan says I coughed all night. I remembered then, I had just such a cough, and just such a pain, the last time I walked in the snow without over shoes. I crept back into bed feeling about as mean as I could. Mother sent up to know why I had not come down, and I had to own that I was sick. She came up directly looking so anxious, and here I have been shut up ever since. Only today I am sitting up a little. Poor mother has had trouble enough with me. I know I have been cross and unreasonable, and it is all my own fault that I was ill. Another time I will do as Mother says. January 31st. How easy it is to make good resolutions and how easy it is to break them. Just as I had got so far yesterday, Mother spoke for the third time about my exerting myself so much, and just at that moment I fainted away, and she had a great time all alone there with me. I did not realize how long I had been writing, nor how weak I was. I do wonder if I shall ever really learn that Mother knows more than I do. February 17th. It is more than a month since I took that cold, and here I still am, shut up in the house. To be sure the doctor lets me go downstairs, but then he won't listen to a word about school. Oh, dear, all the girls will get ahead of me. This is Sunday, and everyone has gone to church. I thought I ought to make good use of the time while they were gone, so I took down the memoir of Henry Martin and read a little on that. I'm afraid I'm not much like him. Then I knelt down and tried to pray, but my mind was full of all sorts of things, so I thought I would wait till I was in a better frame. At noon I disputed with James about the name of an apple. He was very provoking, and he said he was thankful he had not got such a temper as I had. I cried, and Mother reproved him for teasing me, saying my illness had left me nervous and irritable. James replied that it had left me where it found me then. I cried a good deal lying on the sofa, then I fell asleep. I don't see as I am any better for this Sunday. It has only made me feel unhappy and out of sorts. I am sure I prayed to God to make me better, and why doesn't he? February 20. It has been quite a mild day for the season, and the doctor said I might drive out. I enjoyed getting the air very much. I feel just as well as ever, and long to get back to school. I think God has been very good to me in making me well again, and I wished I loved him better. But oh, I'm not sure I do love him. I hate to own it to myself and to write it down here, but I will. I do not love to pray. I'm always eager to get it over with and out of the way so as to have leisure to enjoy myself. I mean that this is usually so. This morning I cried a good deal when I was on my knees and felt sorry for my quick temper and all my bad ways. If I always felt so, perhaps praying would not be such a task. I wish I knew whether anybody exactly as bad as I am ever got to heaven at last. I have read ever so many memoirs, and they were all about people who were too good to live and so died, or else went on a mission. I am not at all like any of them. March twenty-sixth. I have been so busy that I have not said much to you, you poor old journal you, have I? Somehow I have been behaving quite nicely lately. Everything has gone on exactly to my mind. Mother has not found fault with me once, and father has praised my drawings and seemed proud of me. He says he shall not tell me what the teacher saved me lest it should make me vain. And once or twice he's met me singing and frisking about the house. He has kissed me and called me his dear little flippity-jibbit, if that's the way to spell it. When he says that, I know he's very fond of me. We are all very happy together when nothing goes wrong. In the long evenings we all sit around the table with our books and our work, and one of us reads aloud. Mother chooses the books and takes her turn in reading. She reads beautifully. Of course, the readings do not begin till the lessons are all learned. As to me, my lessons just take no time at all. I have only to read them over once, and there they are. So I have a good deal of time to read, and I devour all the poetry I can get hold of. I would rather read Pollock's Course of Time than read nothing at all. April 2. There are three of mother's friends living near us, each with lots of little children. It is perfectly ridiculous how much these creatures are sick. They send for mother if so much as a pimple comes out on one of their faces. When I have children, I don't mean to have such goings on. I shall be careful about what they eat and keep them from getting cold, and they will keep well of their own accord. Mrs. Jones has sent for mother to see her Tommy. It was so provoking. I had coaxed her into letting me have a black silk apron. They are all the fashion now, embroidered in floss silk. I had drawn a lovely vine from mine entirely out of my own head, and mother was going to arrange the pattern for me when the message came, and she had to go. I don't believe anything ails a child, a great chubby thing. April 3. Poor Mrs. Jones! Her dear little Tommy is dead. I stayed at home from school today, and had all the other children here to get them out of their mother's way. How dreadfully she must feel! Mother cried when she told me how the dear little fellow suffered in his last moments. It reminded her of my own little brothers who died in the same way before I was born. Dear mother, I wonder how I can ever forget what trouble she has had, and am not always sweet and loving. She is gone now where she always goes when she feels sad, straight to God. Of course she did not say so, but I know mother. April 25. I have not been down in season once this week. I have persuaded mother to let me read some of Scott's novels, and have sat up late and been sleeping in the morning. I wish I could get along with mother as nicely as James does. He is late far oftener than I, but he never gets into such scrapes about it as I do. This is what happens. He comes down when it suits him. Mother begins. James, I am very much displeased with you. James, I should think you would be mother. Mother, mollified. I don't think you deserve any breakfast. James, hypocritically. No, I don't think I do, mother. Then mother hurries off and gets something extra for his breakfast. Now, let us see how things go on when I am late. Mother. Catherine. She always calls me Catherine when she is displeased and spells it with a K. Catherine, you are late again. How can you annoy your father so? Catherine. Of course I don't do it to annoy father or anybody else, but if I oversleep myself it is not my fault. Mother. I would go to bed at eight o'clock rather than be late as often as you. How should you like it if I were not down to prayers? Catherine, muttering. Of course that is very different. I don't see why I should be blamed for oversleeping any more than James. I get all the scoldings. Mother sighs and goes off. I prowl round and get what scraps of breakfast I can. May 12. The weather is getting perfectly delicious. I am sitting with my window open and my bird is singing with all his heart. I wish I was as gay as he is. I have been thinking lately that it is about time to begin on some of those pieces of self-denial I resolved on upon my birthday. I could not think of anything great enough for a long time. At last an idea popped into my head. Half the girls at school envy me because Amelia is so fond of me. And Jane Underhill, in particular, is just crazy to get intimate with her. But I have kept Amelia all to myself. Today I said to her, Amelia, Jane Underhill admires you above all things. I have a good mind to let you be as intimate with her as you are with me. It will be a great piece of self-denial, but I think it is my duty. She is a stranger and nobody seems to like her much. You dear thing you! cried Amelia, kissing me. I liked Jane Underhill the moment I saw her. She has such a sweet face and such pleasant manners. But you are so jealous that I never dared to show how I liked her. Don't be vexed, dearie. If you are jealous, it is your only fault. She then rushed off and I saw her kiss that girl exactly as she kisses me. This was in recess. I went to my desk and made to believe I was studying. Pretty soon Amelia came back. She is such a sweet girl, she said, and only to think. She writes poetry. Just hear this. It is a little poem addressed to me. Isn't it nice of her? I pretended not to hear her. I was as full of all sorts of hoard feelings as I could hold. It enraged me to think that Amelia, after all her professions of love to me, should snatch at the first chance of getting a new friend. Then I was mortified because I was enraged, and I could have torn myself to pieces for being such a fool as to let Amelia see how silly I was. I don't know what to make of you, Katie, she said, putting her arms around me. Have I done anything to vex you? Come, let us make up and be friends. Whatever it is, I will read you these sweet verses. I am sure you will like them. She read them in her clear pleasant voice. How can you have the vanity to read such stuff, I cried. Amelia colored a little. You have said, and written, much more flattering things to me, she replied. Perhaps it has turned my head and made me too ready to believe what other people say. She folded the paper and put it into her pocket. We walked home together after school, as usual, but neither of us spoke a word. And now here I sit, unhappy enough. All my resolutions fail, but I did not think Amelia would take me at my word and rush after that stuck-up smirking peace. May 20th. I seem to have got back into all my bad ways again. Mother is quite out of patience with me. I have not prayed for a long time. It does not do any good. May 21st. It seems this underhill thing is here for health. Though she looks as well as any of us. She is an orphan and has been adopted by a rich old uncle who makes a perfect fool of her. Such dresses and such finery as she wears. Last night she had Amelia there to tea without inviting me, though she knows I am her best friend. She gave her a bracelet made of her own hair. I wonder Amelia's mother lets her accept presents from strangers. My mother would not let me. On the whole there is nobody like one's own mother. Amelia has been cold and distant to me of late, but no matter what I do or say to my darling, precious mother, she is always kind and loving. She noticed how I moped about today and begged me to tell her what was the matter. I was ashamed to do that. I told it was a little quarrel I had had with Amelia. Dear child, she said, how I pity you that you have inherited my quick, irritable temper. Your mother, I cried out, what can you mean? Mother smiled a little at my surprise. It is even so, she said. Then how did you cure yourself of it? Tell me quick, mother, and let me cure myself of mine. My dear Katie, she said, I wish I could make you see that God is just as willing and just as able to sanctify as he is to redeem us. It would save you so much weary disappointing work. But God has opened my eyes at last. I wish he would open mine then, I said, for all I see now is that I am just as horrid as I can be and that the more I pray, the worse I grow. That is not true, dear, she replied. Go on praying, pray without ceasing. I sat pulling my handkerchief this way and that, and at last rolled it up into a ball and threw it across the rim. I wished I could toss my bad feelings into a corner with it. I do wish I could make you love to pray, my darling child, mother went on. If you only knew the strength and the light and the joy you might have for the simple asking, God attaches no conditions to his gifts. He only says ask. This may be true, but it is hard work to pray. It tires me, and I do wish there was some easy way of growing good. In fact, I should like to have God send a sweet temper to me just as he sent bread and meat to Elijah. I don't believe Elijah had to kneel down and pray for them. End of Chapter 1 Stepping Heaven Word Recording by Teresa Downey Chapter 2 of Stepping Heaven Word This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Teresa Downey Stepping Heaven Word by Elizabeth Prentice Chapter 2 June 1st Last Sunday Dr. Cabot preached to the young. He first addressed those who knew that they did not love God. It did not seem to me that I belonged to that class. Then he spoke to those who knew they did. I felt sure I was not one of those. Last of all, he spoke affectionately to those who did not know what to think. And I was frightened and ashamed to feel tears running down my cheeks when he said that he believed that most of his hearers who were in this doubtful state did really love their master. Only their love was something as new and as tender and perhaps as unobserved as the tiny point of green that, forcing its way through the earth, is yet unconscious of its own existence. But promises a thrifty plant. I don't suppose I express it very well, but I know what he meant. He then invited those belonging to each class to meet him on three successive Saturday afternoons. I shall certainly go. July 19th I went to the meeting and so did Amelia. A great many young people were there and a few children. Dr. Cabot went about from seat to seat, speaking to each one separately. When he came to us I expected he would say something about the way in which I had been brought up and reproach me for not profiting more by the instructions and example I had at home. Instead of that he said in a cheerful voice, Well, my dear, I cannot see into your heart and positively tell whether there is love to God there or not. But I suppose you have come today in order to let me help you find out? I said yes. That was all I could get out. Let me see then, he went on. Do you love your mother? I said yes, once more. But prove to me that you do. How do you know it? I tried to think. Then I said, I feel that I love her. I love to love her. I like to be with her. I like to hear people praise her. And I try, sometimes at least, to do things to please her. But I don't try half as hard as I ought. And I do and say a great many things to displease her. Yes, yes, he said. I know. Has mother told you? I cried out. No, dear, no, indeed. But I know what human nature is after having one of my own for fifty years and six of my children's to encounter. Somehow I felt more courage after he said that. In the first place, then, you feel that you love your mother. But you never feel that you love your God and Savior. I often try and try. But never I do, I said. Love won't be forced, he said quickly. Then what shall I do? In the second place, you like to be with your mother. But you never like to be with a friend who loves you so much better than she does? I don't know. I never was with him. Sometimes I think that when Mary sat at his feet and heard him talk, she must have been very happy. We come to the third test, then. You like to hear people praise your mother. And have you never rejoiced to hear the Lord magnified? I shook my head sorrowfully enough. Let us then try the last test. You know you love your mother because you try to do things to please her. That is, to do what you know she wishes you to do. Very well. Have you never tried to do anything God wishes you to do? Oh yes, often. But not so often as I ought. Of course not. No one does that. But come now. Why do you try to do what you think will please him? Because it is easy? Because you like to do what he likes, rather than what you like yourself? I tried to think and got puzzled. Never mind, said Dr. Cabot. I have come now to the point I was aiming at. You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings toward him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just as far as you obey him, just so far depend upon it. You love him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful human beings to prefer his pleasure to our own or to follow his way instead of our own way. And nothing, nothing but love of him can or does make us obedient to him. Couldn't we obey him from fear? Amelia now asked. She had been listening all this time in silence. Yes, and so you might obey your mother from fear, but only for a season. If you had no real love for her, you would gradually cease to dread her displeasure, whereas it is in the very nature of love to grow stronger and more influential every hour. You mean, then, that if we want to know whether we love God, we must find out whether we are obeying him, Amelia asked? I mean exactly that. He that keepeth my commandments, he it is that loveeth me. But I cannot talk with you any longer now. There are many others still waiting. You can come to see me some day next week if you have any more questions to ask. When we got out into the street, Amelia and I got hold of each other's hands. We did not speak a word till we reached the door, but we knew that we were as good friends as ever. I understand all Dr. Cabot said, Amelia whispered as we separated, but I feel like one in a fog. I cannot see how it is possible to love God, and yet feel as stupid as I do when I think of him. Still I am determined to do one thing, and that is to pray regularly instead of now and then, as I have gotten the habit of doing lately. July 25th. School has closed for the season. I took the first prize for drawing, and my composition was read aloud on Examination Day, and everybody praised it. Mother could not possibly help showing in her face that she was very much pleased. I am pleased myself. We are now getting ready to take a journey. I do not think I shall go to see Dr. Cabot again. My head is full of other things, and there is so much to do before we go. I'm having four new dresses made, and I can't imagine how to have them trimmed. I mean to run down to Amelia's and ask her. July 27th. I was rushing through the hall just after I wrote that and met Mother. I'm going to Amelia's, I said, hurrying past her. Stop one minute, dear. Dr. Cabot is downstairs. He says he has been expecting a visit from you, but as you did not come to him, he has come to you. I wish he would mind his own business, I said. I think he is minding it, dear, Mother answered. His master's business is his, and that has brought him here. Go to him, my darling child. I am sure you crave something better than prizes and compliments and new dresses and journeys. If anybody but Mother had said that, my heart would have melted at once and I should have gone right down to Dr. Cabot to be molded in his hands to almost any shape. But, as it was, I brushed past her, ran into my room, and locked my door. Oh, what makes me act so? I hate myself for it. I don't want to do it. Last week I dined with Mrs. Jones. Her little Tommy that died was very fond of me, and that, I suppose, makes her have me there so often. Lucy was at the table and very fractious. She cried first for one thing and then for another. I lashed her mother in a gentle but very decided way, put her down from the table. Then she cried louder than ever. But, when her mother offered to take her back, if she would be good, she screamed yet more. She wanted to come and wouldn't let herself come. I almost hated her when I saw her act so, and now I am behaving ten times worse, and I am just as miserable as I can be. July 29th. Amelia has been here. She's had another talk with Dr. Cabot, and is perfectly happy. She says it is so easy to be a Christian. It may be easy for her. Everything is. She never has any of my dreadful feelings, and does not understand them when I try to explain them to her. Well, if I am fated to be miserable, I must try to bear it. October 3rd. Summer is over. School has begun again, and I am so busy that I have not much time to think or to be low-spirited. We had a delightful journey, and I feel well and bright and even gay. I never enjoyed my studies as I do those of this year. Everything goes on pleasantly here at home, but James has gone away to school, and we miss him sadly. I do wish I had a sister, though I dare say I should quarrel with her if I did. October 23rd. I am so glad that my studies are harder this year, as I am never happy except when every moment is occupied. However, I do not study all the time by any means. Amelia's mother, Mrs. Gordon, grows more and more fond of me and has me there to dinner or to tea continually. She has a much higher opinion of me than mother has, and is always saying the sort of things that make you feel nice. She holds me up to Amelia as an example, begging her to imitate me in my fidelity about my lessons, and declaring there is nothing she so much desires as to have a daughter as bright and original like me. Amelia only laughs and goes and purrs in her mother's ears when she hears such talk. It costs her nothing to be pleasant. She was born so. For my part, I think myself lucky to have such a friend. She gets along with my odd, hateful ways better than anyone else does. Mother, when I boast of this, says Amelia has no penetration into character, and that she would be fond of almost anyone fond of her, and that the fury with which I love her deserves some response. I really don't know what to make of mother. Most people are proud of their children when they see other admire them, but she does say such pokey things. Of course, I know that having a gift for music and a taste for drawing and a reputation for saying witty, bright things isn't enough. But when she doesn't find fault with me and nothing happens to keep me down, I am the gayest creature on earth. I do love to get with a lot of nice girls and carry on. I have got enough fun in me to keep a houseful merry, and mother needn't say anything. I inherited it from her. Evening. I knew it was coming. Mother has been in to see what I was about, and to give me a bit of her mind. She says she loves to see me gay and cheerful, as is natural at my age. But that so much levity quite upsets and disorders the mind in disposing it for serious thoughts. But mother, I said, didn't you carry on when you were a young girl? Of course I did, she said, smiling. But I do not think I was quite so thoughtless as you are. Thoughtless indeed. I wish I were. But am I not always full of uneasy reproachful thoughts when the moment of excitement is over? Other girls, who seem less trifling than I, are really more so. Their heads are full of dresses and parties and bow and all that sort of nonsense. I wonder if that ever worries their mothers, or whether mine is the only one who weeps in secret. Well, I shall be young but once, and while I am, do let me have a good time. Sunday, November 20. Oh, the difference between this day and the day I wrote that. There are no good times in this dreadful world. I have hardly courage, or strength, to write down the history of the past few weeks. The day after I had deliberately made up my mind to enjoy myself, classed what it might. My dear father called me to him, kissed me, pulled my ears a little, and gave me some money. We have had to keep you rather low on funds, he said, laughing. But I recovered this amount yesterday, and as it was a little debt I had given up, I can spare it to you. Girls like pin money, I know, and you may spend this just as you please. I was delighted. I want to take more drawing lessons, but did not feel he could afford it. Besides, I am a little ashamed to write it down. I knew somebody had been praising me or father would not have seemed so fond of me. I wondered who it was, and felt a good deal puffed up. After all, I said to myself, some people like me, even if I have got my faults. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him, though it cost me a great effort. I never liked to show what I feel. But oh, how thankful I am for it now. As to mother, I know father never goes without kissing her goodbye. I went out with her to take a walk at three o'clock. We had just reached the corner of Orange Street. When I saw carriage driving slowly toward us, it appeared to be full of sailors. Then I saw our friend, Mr. Freeman, among them. When he saw us, he jumped out and came up to us. I do not know what he said. I saw mother turn pale, catch at his arms as if she were afraid of falling. But she did not speak a word. Oh, Mr. Freeman, what is it? I cried out. Has anything happened to father? Is he hurt? Where is he? He is in the carriage, he said. We are taking him home. He has had a fall. Then we went on in silence. The sailors were carrying father in as we reached the house. They laid him on the sofa. And we saw his poor head. November 23rd. I will try to write the rest now. Father was alive, but insensible. He had fallen down into the hold of the ship, and the sailors heard him groaning there. He lived three hours after they brought him home. Mr. Freeman and all our friends were very kind. But we like best to be alone. We three, mother and James and I. My poor mother looks twenty years older, but she is so patient and so concerned for us, and has such a smile of welcome for everyone that comes in that it breaks my heart to see her. November 25th. Mother spoke to me very seriously today about controlling myself more. She said she knew that this was my first real sorrow in how hard it was to bear, but that she was afraid that I should become emotionally disturbed sometime if I indulged myself in such passions of grief. And she said, too, that when friends come to see us full of sympathy and eager to say or do something for our comfort, it was our duty to receive them with as much cheerfulness as possible. I said they, none of them, had anything to say that did not provoke me. It is always a trying task to visit the afflicted, mother said. And you make it doubly hard for your friends by putting on a gloomy, forbidding air, and by refusing to talk of your dear father, as if you were resolved to keep your sorrow all to yourself. I can't smile when I'm so unhappy, I said. A good many people have been here today. Mother has seen them all, though she looked ready to drop. Mrs. Bates said to me in her little, weak, watery voice, your mother is wonderfully sustained, dear. I hope you do feel ruckus out to God's will. Rebellion is most displeasing to him, dear. I made no answer. It is very easy for people to preach. Let me see how they behave when they take their turn in losing their friends. Mrs. Morris said this is a very mysterious dispensation, though she was happy to see that mother was meeting it with so much firmness. As for myself, she went on. I was quite broken down by my dear husband's death. I did not eat as much as would feed a bird for nearly a week. But some people have so much feeling, and then again others are so firm. Your mother is so busy talking with Mrs. March that I won't interrupt her to say goodbye. Well, I came prepared to suggest several things that I thought would comfort her, but perhaps she has thought of them herself. I could have knocked her down. Firm, indeed. Poor mother. After they had all gone, I made her lie down. She looked so tired and worn out. Then I could not help telling her what Mrs. Morris had said. She only smiled a little but said nothing. I wish you would flare up once in a while, mother, I said. She smiled again, and said she had nothing to flare up about. Then I shall do it for you, I cry, to hear that namby-pamby woman who is about as capable of understanding you as an old cat, talking about your being firm. You see what you get by being quiet and patient? People would like you much better if you refused to be comforted and wore sad countenance. Dear Katie, said mother, it is not my first object in life to make people like me. By this time she looks so pale that I was frightened. Though she is so cheerful and things go on much as they did before, I believe she has got her death below. If she has, then I hope I have got mine. And yet I am not fit to die. I wish I was, and I wish I could die. I have lost all interest in everything and don't care what becomes of me. November 28th. I believe I shall go crazy unless people stop coming here hurling volleys of text at mother and me. When soldiers drop wounded on the battlefield, are they taken up tenderly and carried to the rear, which means I suppose out of sight and sound? Is anybody mad enough to suppose it will do them any good to hear scriptures quoted, sermons launched at them before their open bleeding wounds are staunched? Mother ascents, in a mild way, when I talk so, and says, Yes, yes, we are indeed lying wounded on the battlefield of life, and in no condition to listen to any words save those of pity. But dear Katie, we must interpret a right all the well-meant attempts of our friends to comfort us. They mean sympathy, however awkwardly they express it. December 14th. Mother keeps saying I spend too much time in brooding over my sorrow. As for her, she seems to live in heaven. Not that she has long, prosy talks about it, but little words that she lets drop now and then show where her thoughts are and where she would like to be. She seems to think everybody is as eager to go there as she is. For my part, I am not eager at all. I cannot make myself feel that it will be nice to sit in rows all the time singing, fond as I am of music. And when I say it to myself, of course we shall not always sit in rows singing, then I fancy a multitude of shadowy, phantom-like beings dressed in white, moving to and fro in golden streets, doing nothing in particular, and having a dreary time without anything to look forward to. I told Mother so, she said earnestly, and yet in her sweetest, tenderest way. Oh, my darling Katie, what you need is such a living, personal love of Christ to make the thought of being where he is so delightful as to fill your mind with the single thought. What is personal love of Christ? Oh dear, dear, why need my father have been snatched away from me when so many other girls have there spared them? He loved me. He indulged me much. He was so proud of me. What have I done that this dreadful thing should happen to me? I shall never be as happy as I was before. Now I shall always be expecting trouble. Yes, I dare say Mother will go next. Why shouldn't I brood over this sorrow? I like to brood over it. I like to think how wretched I am. I like to have long, furious fits of crying lying on my face on my bed. January 1st, 1832. People talk a great deal about the blessed effects of sorrow. But I do not see any good it has done me to lose my dear father. And as for Mother, she was good enough before. We are going to leave our pleasant home, where all of us children were born, and move into a house in an out-of-the-way street. By selling this house and renting a smaller one, Mother hopes, with economy, to carry James through college. And I must go to Miss Higgins' school, because it is less expensive than Mr. Stone's. Miss Higgins, indeed. I never could bear her. A few months ago how I should have cried and stormed at the idea of her school. But the great sorrows swallows up the little trial. I tried once more this morning, as it is the first day of the year, to force myself to begin to love God. I want to do it. I know I ought to do it. But I cannot. Every day now I go through the form of saying something that I try to pass off as praying. But I take no pleasure in it, as good people say they do, and as I am sure Mother does. Nobody could live in the house with her and doubt that. January 10th. We are in our new home now, and it is quite a cozy little place. James is at home for the long vacation. And we are all together all the time I am out of school. We study and sing together, and now and then, when we forget that Dear Father has gone, we are as full of fun as ever. It is so nice to have a brother. What must it be to have a sister? Dear old Jim, he is the very pleasantest, dearest fellow in the world. January 15th. I have come to another birthday, and am seventeen. Mother has celebrated it just as usual, though I know all these anniversaries, which used to be so pleasant, must be sad days to her now my dear Father has gone. She has been cheerful and loving and entered into all my pleasures exactly as if nothing had happened. I wonder at myself that I do not enter more into her sorrows. But though at times the remembrance of our loss overwhelms me, my natural elasticity soon makes me rise above and forget it. And I am absorbed with these school days that come one after another in such quick succession that I am all the time running to keep up with them. And as long as I do that, I forget that death has crossed our threshold and may do it again. But tonight I feel very sad. And as if I would give almost anything to live in a world where nothing painful could happen, somehow Mother's pale face haunts and repurchases me. I believe I will go to bed and to sleep as quickly as possible and forget everything. End of Chapter 2. Recording by Teresa Downey Chapter 3 of Stepping Heaven Word This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Teresa Downey Stepping Heaven Word by Elizabeth Prentice Chapter 3 July 16 My school days are over. I have come off with flying colors and Mother is pleased at my success. I said to her today that I should now have time to draw and practice to my heart's content. You will not find your heart content with either, she said. Why, Mother, I cried. I thought you liked to see me happy. And so I do, she said quietly. But there is something better to be got out of life than you have yet found. I am sure I hope so, I returned. On the whole I haven't got much so far. Amelia is now on such terms with Jenny Underhill that I can hardly see one without seeing the other. After the way in which I have loved her, this seems rather hard. Sometimes I am angry about it and sometimes grieved. However, I find Jenny quite nice. She buys all the new books and lends them to me. I wish I liked more solid reading, but I don't. And I wish I were not so fond of novels, but I am. If it were not for Mother, I should read nothing else. And I am sure I often feel quite stirred up by a really good novel and admire and want to imitate every high-minded noble character it describes. Jenny has a miniature of her brother Charlie in a locket, which she always wears and often shows me. According to her, he is exactly like the heroes I most admire in books. She says she knows he would like me if we should meet. But that is not probable. Very few like me. Amelia says it is because I'd say just what I think. Wednesday. Mother pointed out to me this evening two lines from a book she was reading, with a significant smile that said they described me. Quote. A frank, unchastened, generous creature whose faults and virtues stand in bold relief. Unquote. Dear me, I said. So then I have some virtues after all. And I really think I must have, for Jenny's brother, who has come here for the sake of being near her, seems to like me very much. Nobody ever liked me so much before, not even Amelia. But how foolish to write that down. Thursday. Jenny's brother has been here all evening. He has the most perfect manners I ever saw. I am sure that Mother, who thinks so much of such things, would be charmed with him. But she happened to be out, Mrs. Jones having sent for her to see about her baby. He gave me an account of his mother's death, and how he and Jenny nursed her day and night. He has a great deal of feeling. I was going to tell him about my father's death. Sorrow seems to bring people together so, but I could not. Oh, if he had only had sickness that needed our tender nursing, instead of being snatched from us in that sudden way. Sunday. August 5th. Jenny's brother has been at our church all day. He walked home with me this afternoon. Mother, after being up all night with Mrs. Jones and her baby, was not able to go out. Dr. Cabot preaches, as if we had all got to die pretty soon, or else have something almost as bad happen to us. How can old people always try to make young people feel uncomfortable and as if things couldn't last? August 25th. Jenny says her brother is perfectly fascinated with me, and that I must try to like him in return. I suppose Mother would say my head was turned by my good fortune, but it is not. I am getting quite sober and serious. It is a great thing to be, to be, well, liked. I have seen some verses of his composition today that show his all heart and soul and would make any sacrifice for one he loved. I could not like a man who did not possess such sentiments as his. Perhaps Mother would think I ought not to put such things into my journal. Jenny has thought of a splendid plan. What a dear little thing she is. She and her brother are so much alike. The plan is for us three girls, Jenny, Amelia, and myself, to form ourselves into a little class to read and to study together. She says Charlie will direct our readings and help us with our studies. It is perfectly delightful. September 1st. Somehow I forgot to tell Mother that Mr. Underhill was to be our teacher. So when it came my turn to have the class meet here she was not quite pleased. I told her she could stay and watch us, and then she would see for herself that we all behaved ourselves. September 19th. The class met at Amelia's tonight. Mother insisted on sending for me, though Mr. Underhill had proposed to see me home himself. So he stayed after I left. It was not quite the right thing, for he must see that Amelia is absolutely crazy about him. September 28th. We met at Jenny's this evening. Amelia had a bad headache and could not come. Jenny idled over her lessons and at last took a book and began to read. I studied a while with Mr. Underhill. At last he said, scribbling something on a bit of paper. Here is a sentence I hope you can translate. I took it and read these words. You are the brightest, prettiest, most warm-hearted little thing in the world, and I love you more than tongue can tell. You must love me in the same way. I felt hot and then cold and then glad and then sorry, but I pretended to laugh and said I could not translate Greek. I shall have to tell Mother, and what will she say. September 29th. This morning Mother began thus. Kate, I do not like these lessons of yours. At your age, with your judgment quite unformed, it is not proper that you should spend so much time with a young man. Jenny is always there, and Amelia, I replied. That makes no difference. I wish the whole thing stopped. I do not know what I've been thinking of to let it go on so long. Mrs. Gordon says, Mrs. Gordon, ha! I burst out. I knew Amelia was at the bottom of it. Amelia is in love with him up to her very ears, and because he does not entirely neglect me, she has put her mother up to coming here meddling and making— If what you say of Amelia is true, it is most ungenerous in you to tell of it. But I do not believe it. Amelia Gordon has too much good sense to be carried away by a handsome face in agreeable manners. I began to cry. He likes me, I got out. He likes me ever so much. Nobody was ever so kind to me before. Nobody ever said such nice things to me. And I don't want such horrid things said about him. Has it really come to this? said Mother, quite shocked. Oh, my poor child, how my selfish sorrow has made me neglect you! I kept on crying. Is it possible, she went on, that with your good sense and the education you have had, you are captivated by this mere boy? He's not a boy, I said. He is a man. He is twenty years old, or at least he will be on the fifteenth of next October. The child actually keeps his birthdays, cried Mother. Oh, my wicked, shameful carolessness. It's done now, I said desperately. It's too late to help it now. You don't mean that he has dared to say anything without consulting me, asked Mother, and that you have allowed it. Oh, Catherine! By this time my mouth shut itself up, and no mortal force could open it. I stopped crying and sat with folded arms. Mother said what she had to say, and then I came to you, my dear old journal. Yes, he likes me, and I like him. Come now, let's out with it once for all. He loves me, and I love him. You are just a little bit too late, Mother. October First I never can write down all the things that have happened. The very day after I wrote that Mother had forbidden my going to the class, Charlie came to see her, and they had a regular fight together. He has told me about it since. Then, as he could not prevail, his uncle wrote, told her it would be the making of Charlie to be settled down on one young lady instead of hovering from flower to flower as he was doing now. Then Jenny came with her pretty ways and cried and told Mother what a darling brother Charlie was. She made a good deal, too, out of his having lost both Father and Mother and needing my affection so much. Mother shut herself up, and I have no doubt prayed over it. I really believe she prays over every new dress she buys. Then she sent for me and talked beautifully, and I behaved abominably. At last she said she would put us on one year's probation. Charlie might spend one evening here every two weeks, when she should always be present. We were never to be seen together in public, nor would she allow us to correspond. If at the end of the year we were both as eager for it as we are now, she would consent to our engagement. Of course we shall be, so I consider myself as good as engaged now. Dear me, how funny it seems! October 2. Charlie is not at all pleased with Mother's terms, but no one would guess it from his manner to her. His coming is always a signal for her trotting downstairs. He goes to meet her and offers her a chair as if he was delighted to see her. We go on with the lessons as this gives us a chance to sit pretty close together, and when I am writing my exercises and he corrects them. I rather think a few little things get onto the paper that sound nicely to us, but would not strike Mother very agreeably. For instance, last night Charlie wrote, Is your Mother never sick? A nice little headache or two would be so convenient to us. And I wrote back, You dear old horrid thing, how can you be so selfish? January 15, 1833 I have been trying to think whether I am any happier today than I was at this time a year ago. If I am not, I suppose it is the tantalizing way in which I am placed in regard to Charlie. We have so much to say to each other that we can't say before Mother, and that we cannot say in writing, because a correspondence is one of the forbidden things. He says he entered into no contract not to write and keeps slipping little notes into my hand, but I don't think that quite right. Mother hears us arguing and disputing about it, though she does not know the subject under discussion, and today she said to me, I would not argue with him if I were you. He never will yield. But this is the case of conscience, I said, and he ought to yield. There is no obstinacy like that of us. She began and stopped short. Oh, you may as well finish it, I cried. I know you think I'm a fool. Then Mother burst out. Oh, my child! she said. Before it is too late, do be persuaded by me to give up this whole thing. I shrink from painting or offending you, but it is my duty as your mother to warn you against a marriage that will make shipwreck of your happiness. Marriage! I fairly shrieked out. That is the last thing I had ever thought of. I felt a chill creep over me. All I had wanted was to have Charlie come here every day, and take me out now and then, and care for nobody else. Yes, marriage, Mother repeated, for what is the meaning of an engagement if marriage is not to follow? How can you fail to see what I see? Oh, so plainly, that Charlie Underhill can never, never meet the requirements of your soul. You are captivated by what girls of your age call beauty. Regular features, a fair complexion, and soft eyes. His flatteries delude and his professions of affection gratify you. You do not see that he is shallow and conceited and selfish and, oh, Mother, how can you be so unjust? His whole study seems to be to please others. Seems to be. That is true, she replied. His ruling passion is love of admiration. The little pleasing acts that attract you are so many traps set to catch the attention and the favorable opinion of those about him. He has not one honest desire to please, because it is right to be pleasing. Oh, my precious child, what a fatal mistake you are making in relying on your own judgment in this, the most important of all earthly decisions. I felt very angry. I thought the Bible forbade backbiting, I said. Mother made no reply, except by a look that said about a hundred and forty different things. And then I came up here and wrote some poetry, which was very good for me, though I don't suppose she would think so. October 1st The year of probation is over, and I have nothing to do now but be happy. But being engaged is not half so nice as I expected it would be. I suppose it is owing to my being obliged to defy Mother's judgment in order to gratify my own. People say she has great insight into character, and sees at a glance what others only learn after much study. October 10th I have taken a dreadful cold. It is too bad. I dare say I shall be coughing all winter, and instead of going out with Charlie, be shut up at home. October 12th Charlie says he did not know that I was subject to cough, and that he hopes I am not consumptive, because his father and mother both died of consumption, and it makes him nervous to hear people cough. I nearly strangled myself all evening, trying not to annoy him with mine. End of Chapter 3 Recording by Teresa Downey Chapter 4 of Stepping Heaven Word This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Teresa Downey Stepping Heaven Word By Elizabeth Prentice Chapter 4 November 2nd I really think I am sick and going to die. Last night I raised a little blood. I dare not tell Mother. It would distress her so. But I am sure it came from my lungs. Charlie said last week he really must stay away till I got better, for my cough sounded like his mother's. I have been very lonely and have shed some tears, but most of the time have been too sorrowful to cry. If we were married and I had a cough, would he go and leave me? I wonder. Sunday November 18th Poor Mother is dreadfully anxious about me, but I don't see how she can love me so after the way I have behaved. I wonder if, after all, mothers are not the best friends there are. I keep her awake with my cough all night and in moping cross all day, but she is just as kind and affectionate as she can be. November 25th The day I wrote that was Sunday. I could not go to church and I felt very forlorn and desolate. I tried to get some comfort by praying, but when I got on my knees I just burst out crying and could not say a word, for I have not seen Charlie for ten days. As I knelt there I began to think myself a perfect monster of selfishness for wanting him to spend his evenings with me, now that I am so unwell and annoy him so with my cough. And I asked myself if I ought not to break off the engagement altogether. If I was really in a consumption, the very disease Charlie dreaded most of all. It seemed such a proper sacrifice to make of myself. Then I prayed. Yes, I am sure I really prayed, as I had not done for more than a year. And the idea of self-sacrifice grew every moment more beautiful in my eyes, till at last I felt an almost joyful triumph in writing to poor Charlie and telling him what I had resolved to do. This is my letter. My dear, dear Charlie, I dare not tell you what it cost me to say what I am about to do, but I am sure you know me well enough by this time to believe that it is only because your happiness is far more precious to me than my own that I have decided to write you this letter. When you first told me that you loved me, you said, and you have often said since then, that it was my brightness and gaiety that attracted you. I knew there was something underneath my gaiety better worth your love, and was glad I could give you more than you asked for. I knew I was not a mere thoughtless laughing girl, but that I had a heart as wide as the ocean to give you, as wide and as deep. But now my brightness and gaiety have gone. I am sick, and perhaps I am going to die. If this is so, it would be very sweet to have your love go with me to the very gates of death and beautify and glorify my path thither. But what a weary task this would be for you, my poor Charlie. And if so, if you think it best, and it would relieve you of any care and pain, I will release you from our engagement and set you free. Your little Cady. I did not sleep at all that night. Early on Monday I sent off my letter, and my heart beat so hard all day that I was tired and faint. Just at dark his answer came. I can copy it from memory. Dear Kate, what a generous and self-sacrificing little thing you are. I always thought so, but now you have given me a noble proof of it. I will own that I have been disappointed to find your constitution so poor, and that it has been very dull sitting and hearing you cough, especially as I was reminded of the long and tedious illness through which poor Jenny and myself had to nurse our mother. I vowed then never to marry a consumptive woman, and I thank you for making it so easy for me to bring our engagement to an end. My bright hopes are blighted, and it will be long before I shall find another to fill your place. I need not say how much I sympathize with you in this disappointment. I hope the consolations of religion will not be yours. Your notes, the lock of your hair, etc. I return with this now. I will not repote you for the pain you have cost me. I know it is not your fault that your health has become so frail. I remain your sincere friend, Charles Underhill. January 1, 1834 Let me finish this story if I can. My first impulse, after reading his letter, was to fly to mother and hide away forever in her dear loving arms. But I restrained myself, and with my heart beating so that I could hardly hold my pen, I wrote, Mr. Underhill, Sir, the scales have fallen from my eyes, and I see you at last just as you are. Since my note to you on Sunday last, I have had consultation of physicians, and they all agree my disease is not of an alarming character and that I shall soon recover. But I thank God that before it was too late, you have been revealed to me, just as you are, a heartless, selfish, shallow creature, unworthy of the love of a true-hearted woman, unworthy even of your own self-respect. I gave you an opportunity to withdraw from engagement in full faith, loving you so truly that I was ready to go trembling to my grave alone if you shrank from sustaining me to it. But I see now that I did not dream for one moment that you would take me at my word and leave me to my fate. I thought I loved a man, and could lean on him when strength failed me. I know now that I loved a mere creature of my imagination. Take back your letters, I loathe the side of them. Take back the ring and find, if you can, a woman who will never be sick, never out of spirits, and who will never die. Thank heaven it is not Catherine Mortimer. These lines came to me in reply. Thank God it is not Kate Mortimer. I want an angel for my wife, not a vixen. See you. January 15th. What a tempest-tossed creature this birthday finds me. But let me finish this wretched disgraceful story if I can before I quite lose my senses. I showed Mother the letters. She burst into tears and opened her arms, and I ran into them as a wounded bird flies into the ark. We cried together. Mother never said a word, never looked, I told you so. All she did say was this. God has heard my prayers. He is reserving better things for my child. Dear mothers are not the only arms I have flown to, but it does not seem as if God ought to take me in because I am in trouble, when I would not go to him when I was happy in something else. But even in the midst of my greatest fullicity I had many and many a misgiving, many a season when my conscience upgraded me for my willfulness towards my dear mother, and my whole soul yearned for something higher and better even than Charlie's love, precious as it was. January 26th. I have shut myself in my room today to think over things. The end of it is that I am full of mortification and confusion of face. If I had only had confidence in mother's judgment, I never should have gotten tangled in this silly engagement. I see now that Charlie never could have made me happy, and I know there is a good deal in my heart he never called out. I wish, however, I had not written him when I was in a passion. No wonder he is thankful that he got free from such a vixen. But, oh, the provocation was terrible. I have made up my mind never to tell a human soul about this affair. It will be so high-minded and honourable to shield him thus from the contempt he deserves. With all my faults I am glad there is nothing mean or little about me. January 27th. Oh, I can't bear to write it down, but I will. The ink was hardly dry on the above self-lawdation when Amelia came. She had been out of town and had only just learned what had happened. Of course she was curious to know the whole story. And I told it to her every word of it. Oh, Kate Mortimer, how high-minded you are. How free from all that is mean and little. I could tear my hair if it would do any good. Amelia defended Charlie, and I was thus led on to say every harsh thing of him I could think of. She said he was of so sensitive a nature, had so much sensibility and such a constitutional aversion to seeing suffering, that for her part she could not blame him. It is such a pity that you had not had your lungs examined before you wrote that first letter she went on. But you were so impulsive. If you had only waited you would be engaged to Charlie still. I am thankful I did not wait, I cried angrily. Do, Amelia, drop the subject forever. You and I shall never agree upon it. The truth is you are two-thirds in love with him and have been all along. She colored and laughed and actually looked pleased. If anyone had made such an outrageous speech to me, I should have been furious. I suppose you know, said she, that old Mr. Underhill has taken such a fancy to him that he has made him his heir, and he is as rich as a Jew. Indeed, I said dryly. I wonder if mother knew it when she opposed our engagement so strenuously. January 31st. I have asked her. And she said she did. Mr. Underhill told her his intentions when he urged her consent to the engagement. Dear mother, how unworldly, how unselfish she is. February 4th. The name of Charlie Underhill appears on these pages for the last time. He is engaged to Amelia. From this moment she is lost to me forever. How desolate, how mortified, how miserable I am. Who could have thought this of Amelia? She came to see me radiant with joy. I concealed my disgust until she said that Charlie felt now that he had never really loved me, but had preferred her all along. Then I burst out. What I said I do not know and do not care. The whole thing is so disgraceful that I should be a stock or a stone not to resent it. February 5th. After yesterday's passion of grief, shame, and anger, I feel perfectly stupid and languid. Oh, that I was prepared for a better world and could fly to it and be at rest. February 6th. Now that it is all over, how ashamed I am of the fury I have been in, which has given Amelia such advantage over me. I was beginning to believe I was really living a feeble and fluttering but real Christian life and finding some satisfaction in it. But that is all over now. I am doomed to be a victim of my own unstable, passionate wayward nature, and the sooner I settle down into that conviction, the better. And yet how my very soul craves the highest happiness and refuses to be comforted while that is wanting. February 7th. After writing that, I do not know what made me go to see Dr. Cabot. He received me in that cheerful way of his that seems to promise the taking of one's burdens right off one's back. I am very glad to see you, my dear child, he said. I intended to be very dignified and cold, as if I was going to have any Dr. Cabot's undertaking to sympathize with me. But those few kind words just upset me and I began to cry. You would not speak so kindly, I got out at last. If you knew what a dreadful creature I am. I am angry with myself and angry with everybody and angry with God. I can't be good two minutes at a time. I do everything I do not want to do, and do nothing I try and pray to do. Everybody plagues me and tempts me, and God does not answer any of my prayers, and I am just desperate. Poor child, he said in a low voice, as if to himself. Poor, heart-sick, tired child that cannot see what I can see, that its father's loving arms are all about it. I stopped crying to strain my ears to listen. He went on, Katie, all that you say may be true. I dare say it is. But God loves you. He loves you. He loves me, I repeated to myself. He loves me. Oh, Dr. Cabot, if I could believe that, if I could believe that after all the promises I have broken, all the foolish, wrong things I have done and shall always be doing, God perhaps still loves me? You may be sure of it, he said solemnly. I, his minister, bring the gospel to you today. Go home and say over and over to yourself. I am a wayward, foolish child, but he loves me. I have disobeyed and grieved him ten thousand times. But he loves me. I have lost faith in some of my dearest friends and am very desolate. But he loves me. I do not love him. I am even angry with him. But he loves me. I came away, and all the way home, I fought this battle with myself, saying, he loves me. I knelt down to pray, and all my wasted, childish, wicked life came and stared me in the face. I looked at it and said with tears of joy, but he loves me. Never in my life did I feel so rested, so quieted, so sorrowful, and yet so satisfied. February 10th. What a beautiful world this is and how full it is of truly kind, good people. Mrs. Morris was here this morning, and just one squeeze of that long yellow old hand of hers seemed to speak a bookful. I wonder why I have always disliked her so, for she is really an excellent woman. I gave her a good kiss to pay her for the sympathy. She had sense enough not to put into canting words. And if you will believe it, dear old journal, the tears came into her eyes, and she said, You are one of the Lord's beloved ones, though perhaps you do not know it. I repeated again to myself those sweet, mysterious words, and then I tried to think what I could do for him, but I could not think of anything great or good enough. I went into mother's rooms and put my arms round her, and told her how I loved her. She looked surprised and pleased. Ah, I knew it would come, she said, laying her hand on her Bible. Knew what would come, mother? Peace, she said. I am back here and wrote a little note to Amelia, telling her how ashamed and sorry I was that I could not control myself the other day. Then I wrote a long letter to James. I have been very careless about writing to him. Then I began to hem those handkerchiefs mother asked me to finish a month ago. But I could not think of anything to do for God. I wish I could. It makes me happy to think that all this time while I was caring for nobody but myself and fancying he must almost hate me, he was loving and pitying me. February 15th. I went to see Dr. Cabbage again today. He came down from his study with his pen in his hand. How dare you come and spoil my sermon on Saturday, he asked good-humoredly. Though he seemed full of loving-kindness, I was ashamed of my thoughtlessness. Though I did not know he was particularly busy on Saturdays. If I were minister I am sure I would get my sermons done early in the week. I only wanted to ask one thing I said. I want to do something for God, and I cannot think of anything unless it is to go on a mission. And mother would never let me do that. She thinks girls with delicate health are not fit for such work. At all events I would not go today, he replied. Meanwhile, do everything you do for him who has loved you and given himself for you. I did not dare stay any longer, and so came away quite puzzled. Dinner was ready, and as I sat down to the table I said to myself, I eat this dinner for myself, not for God. What can Dr. Cabbage mean? Then I remembered the text about doing all for the glory of God, even in eating and drinking, but I do not understand it at all. February 19th. It has seemed to me for several days that it must be that I really do love God, though ever so little, but it shot through my mind today like a knife, that it is a miserable selfish love at the best, not worth my giving, not worth God's accepting. All my old misery has come back with seven other miseries more miserable than itself. I wish I had never been born. I wish I were thoughtless and careless, like so many other girls of my age, who seem to get along very well, and to enjoy themselves far more than I do. February 21st. Dr. Cabbage came to see me today. I told him all about it. He could not help smiling, as he said. When I see a little infant caressing its mother, would you have me say to it, you selfish child? How dare you pretend to caress your mother in that way? You are quite unable to appreciate her character. You love her merely because she loves you, treats you kindly. It was my turn to smile now at my own folly. You are, as yet, but a babe in Christ, Dr. Cabbage continued. You love your God and Saviour because he first loved you. The time will come when the character of your love will become changed into one which sees and feels the beauty and the perfection of its object. And if you could be assured that he no longer looked on you with favour, you would still cling to him with devoted affection. There is one thing more that troubles me, I said. Most persons know the exact moment when they began real Christian lives. But I do not know any such time in my history. This causes me many uneasy moments. You are wrong in thinking that most persons have this advantage over you. I believe that the children of Christian parents, who have been judiciously trained, rarely can point to any day or hour when they began to live this new life. The question is not, do you remember my child when you entered this world and how? It is simply this. Are you now alive and an inhabitant thereof? And now it is my turn to ask you a question. How happens it that you, who have a mother of rich and varied experience, allow yourself to be tormented with these petty anxieties that she is as capable of dispelling as I am? I do not know, I answered, but we girls can't talk to our mothers about any of our sacred feelings, and we hate to have them talk to us. Dr. Kavett shook his head. There is something wrong somewhere, he said. A young girl's mother is her natural refuge in every perplexity. I hoped that you, who have rather more sense than most girls of your age, could give me some idea what the difficulty is. After he had gone, I am ashamed to own that I was in a perfect flutter of delight at what he had said about my having more sense than most girls. Meeting poor mother on the stairs while in this exalted state of mind, I gave her very short answer to a kind question and made her unhappy, as I have made myself. It was just a year ago today that I got frightened at my novel reading propensities and resolved not to look into one for twelve months. I was getting to dislike all other books, and night after night sat up late devouring everything exciting I could get hold of. One Saturday night I sat up till the clock struck twelve to finish one, and the next morning I was so sleepy that I had to stay at home from church. Now I hope and believe the back of this taste is broken and that I shall never be a slave to it again. Indeed it does not seem to me now that I shall ever care for such books again. February 24th. Mother spoke to me this morning for the fiftieth time I really believe about my disorderly habits. I don't think I am careless because I like confusion, but the trouble is I am always in a hurry and a ferment about something. If I want to anything I want it very much and right away, so if I am looking for a book or piece of music or pattern, I tumble everything around and can't stop to put them to rights. I wish I were not so eager and impatient, but I mean to try to keep my room and my drawers in order to please Mother. She says too that I am growing careless about my hair and my dress, but that is because my mind is so full of grave or more important things. I thought I ought to be wholly occupied with my duty to God. But Mother says duty to God includes duty to one's neighbor, and that untidy hair, put up in all sorts of rough bunches, rumpled cuffs and collars, and all that sort of thing, make one offensive to all one meets. I am sorry she thinks so, if I find it very convenient to twist up my hair almost anyhow, and it takes a good deal of time to look after collars and cuffs. March 14th. Today I feel discouraged and disappointed. I certainly thought that if God really loved me and I really loved him, I should find myself growing better day by day, but I am not improved in the least. Most of the time I spend on my knees I am either stupid, feeling nothing at all, or else my head is full of what I was going to do before I began to pray, or what I am going to do as soon as I get through. I do not believe anybody else in the world is like me in this respect. Then when I feel differently and can make a nice glib prayer with floods of tears running down my cheeks, I get all puffed up and think how much please God must be to see me so fervent in spirit. I go downstairs in this frame, and begin to scold Susan for misplacing my music, till all of a sudden I catch myself doing it and stop short, crest fallen and confounded. I have so many such experiences that I feel like a baby just learning to walk, who is so afraid of falling that it is half a mind to sit down once for all. Then there is another thing, seeing mothers so fond of Thomas a Kempis, I have been reading it now and then, and am not fond of it at all. From beginning to end it exhorts self-denial in every form and shape. Must I then give up all hope of happiness in this world and modify all my natural tastes and desires? Oh, I do love so to be happy, and I do so hate to suffer. The very thought of being sick or being forced to nurse sick people with all their crossways and of losing my friends or of having to live with disagreeable people makes me shudder. I want to please God, and to be like Him I certainly do, but I am so young, and it is so natural to want to have a good time, and now I am in for it. I may as well tell the whole story. When I read the lives of good men and women who have died and gone to heaven, I find they all like to sit and think about God and about Christ. Now, I don't. I often try, but my mind flies off in a tangent. The truth is, I am perfectly discouraged. March 17th. I went to see Dr. Cabot today, but he was out. So I thought I would ask for Mrs. Cabot, though I was determined not to tell her any of my troubles. But somehow she got the whole story out of me, and instead of being shocked, as I expected she would be, she actually burst out laughing. She recovered herself immediately, however. To excuse me for laughing at you, you dear child you, she said, but I remember so well how I used to flounder through just such needless anxieties and life looks so different, so very different to me now from what it did then. What should you think of a man who, having just sowed his field, was astonished not to see it at once ripe for the harvest, just because his neighbors, after long months of waiting, was just being gathered in? Do you mean, I asked, that by and by I shall naturally come to feel and think as other good people do? Yes I do. You must make the most of what little Christian life you have. Be thankful God has given you so much. Cherish it, pray over it, and guard it like the apple of your eye. Imperceptibly, but surely it will grow and keep on growing, for this is its nature. But I don't want to wait, I said despondently. I have just been reading a delightful book, full of stories of heroic deeds. Not fables, but histories of real events, and real people. It has quite stirred me up, and made me wish to possess such a beautiful heroism, and that I were a man, that I might have a chance to perform some truly noble, self-sacrificing acts. I daresay your chance will come, she replied, though you are not a man. I fancy we all get, more or less, what we want. Do you really think so? Let me see then, what I want most. But am I staying too long? Were you particularly busy? No, she returned smilingly. I am learning that the man who wants me is the man I want. You are very good to say so. While in the first place, I do really and truly want to be good. Not with common goodness, you know, but... But uncommon goodness, she put in. I mean that I want to be very, very good. I should like next to be learned and accomplished. Then I should want to be perfectly well and perfectly happy. And a pleasant home, of course. I must have with friends to love me and like me too. And I can't get along without some pretty tasteful things about me. But you are laughing at me. Have I said anything foolish? If I laughed, it was not at you, but at poor human nature, that would feign grasp everything at once. Allowing that you should possess all you have just described. Where is the heroism you so much admire to exercise? That's just what I was saying. This is just what troubles me. To be sure, while perfectly well and happy, in a pleasant home with friends to love and admire you. Oh, I did not say admire, I interrupted. That is just what you meant, my dear. I'm afraid it was. Now I come to think it over. While with plenty of friends, good in an uncommon way, accomplished, learned, and surrounded with pretty and tasteful objects, your life will certainly be in danger of not proving very sublime. It is a great pity, I said musingly. Suppose then you content yourself for the present, with doing in a faithful, quiet, persistent way all the little, homely tasks that return with each returning day, each one as unto God, and perhaps by and by you will thus have gained strength for a more heroic life. But I don't know how. You have some little home duties, I suppose. Yes, I have the care of my own room, and Mother wants me to have a general oversight of the parlor. You know we have but one parlor now. Is that all you have to do? Why, my music and drawing take up a good deal of my time, and I read and study more or less, and go out some, and we have a good many visitors. I suppose then you keep your room in a nice ladylike order, and that the parlor is dusted every morning, loose music put out of the way, books restored to their places. Now I know Mother has been telling you. Your Mother has told me nothing at all. Well then, I said, laughing but a little ashamed. I don't keep my room in a nice order, and Mother really sees to the parlor herself, although I pretend to do it. And is she never annoyed by this neglect? Oh yes, very much annoyed. Then, dear Katie, suppose your first act of heroism tomorrow should be gratifying your Mother in these little things, little though they are. Surely your first duty, next to pleasing God, is to please your Mother, and in every possible way, to sweeten and beautify her life. You may depend upon it, that a life of real heroism and self-sacrifice must begin and lay its foundation in this little world, wherein it learns its first lesson and takes its first steps. And do you really think God notices such little things? My dear child, what a question! If there is any one truth I would gladly impress upon the mind of a young Christian, it is just this, that God notices the most trivial act, except the poorest, most threadbare little service, listens to the coldest, feeblest petition, and gathers up with parental fondness all our fragmentary desires and attempts at good works. Oh, if we could only begin to conceive how he loves us, what different creatures we should be! I felt inspired by her enthusiasm, though I don't think I quite understand what she means. I did not dare stay any longer, for with her great host of children, she must have her hands full. March 25th. Mother is very much astonished to see how nicely I am keeping things in order. I was flying about this morning, singing and dusting the furniture when she came in and began, he that is faithful in that which is least. But I re-entered her with my brush and would not let her finish. I really don't deserve to be praised, for I have been thinking that, if it is true that God notices every little thing we do to please him, he must also notice every cross word we speak, every shrug of the shoulders, every ungracious look, and that they displease him. And my list of such offenses is as long as my life. March 29th. Yesterday, for the first time since that dreadful blow, I felt some return of my natural gaiety and cheerfulness. It seemed to come hand in hand with my first real effort to go so far out of my way to try to do exactly what would gratify dear mother. But today I am all down again. I miss Amelia's friendship for one thing. To be sure, I wonder how I ever came to love such a superficial creature so devotedly. But I must have somebody to love. And perhaps I invented a lovely creature and called it by her name and bowed down to it and worshipped it. I certainly did so in regard to him whose heartless cruelty has left me so sad, so desolate. Evening. Mother has been very patient and forbearing with me all day. Tonight, after tea, she said in her gentlest, tenderest way, Dear Katie, I feel very sorry for you. But I see one path which you have not yet tried, which can lead you out of these sore straits. You have tried living for yourself a good many years. And the result is great weariness and heaviness of soul. Try now to live for others. Take a class in the Sunday School. Go with me to visit my poor people. You will be astonished to find how much suffering and sickness there is in the world and how delightful it is to sympathize with and to try to relieve it. This advice was very repugnant to me. My time is pretty fully occupied with my books, my music, my drawing, and of all places in the world I hate a sick rim. But on the whole I will take a class in the Sunday School. End of Chapter 4 of Stepping Heaven Word Recording by Teresa Downey Chapter 5 of Stepping Heaven Word This is the LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Teresa Downey Stepping Heaven Word by Elizabeth Prentice Chapter 5 April 6th I have taken it at last. I would not take one before because I knew I could not teach little children how to love God unless I loved Him myself. My class is perfectly delightful. There are twelve dear little things in it of all ages between eight and nine. Eleven are girls and the one boy makes more trouble than all of them put together. When I get them all about me and their sweet innocent faces look up into mine, I am so happy that I can hardly help stopping every now and then to kiss them. They ask the very strangest questions. I mean to spend a great deal of time in preparing the lesson and in hunting up stories to illustrate it. Oh, I am so glad I was ever born into this beautiful world, where there will always be dear little children to love. April 13th Sunday has come again and with it my darling little class. Dr. Cabot has preached delightfully all day and I feel that I begin to understand his preaching better and that it must do me good. I long, truly long to please God. I long to feel as the best Christians feel and to live as they live. April 20th Now that I have these twelve little ones to instruct, I am more than ever in earnest about setting them a good example through the week. It is true they do not, most of them, know how I spend my time nor how I act, but I know, and whenever I am conscious of not practicing what I preach, I am bitterly ashamed and grieved. How much work, badly done, I am now having to undo. If I had begun in earnest to serve God when I was as young as these children are, how many wrong habits I should have avoided, habits that entangle me now, as in so many nuts. I am trying to take each of these little gentle girls by the hand and lead her to Christ. Poor Johnny Ross is not so docile as they are and tries my patience to the last degree. April 27th This morning I had my little flock about me and talked to them out of the very bottom of my heart about Jesus. They left their seats and got close to me in a circle, leaning on my lap and drinking in every word. All of a sudden I was aware, as by a magnetic influence, that a great, lumbering man in the next seat was looking at me out of two of the blackest eyes I ever saw and evidently listening to what I was saying. I was disconcerted at first, then angry. What impertinence! What rudeness! I am sure he must have seen my displeasure in my face, for he got up what I suppose he meant for a blush. That is, he turned several shades darker than he was before, giving one the idea that he is full of black rather than red blood. I should not have remembered it, however. By it I mean his impertinence. If he had not shortly after made a really excellent address to the children. Perhaps it was a little above their comprehension, but it showed a good deal of thought and earnestness. I meant to ask who he was, but forgot it. This has been a delightful Sunday. I have really feasted on Dr. Cabot's preaching. But I am satisfied that there is something in religion I do not yet comprehend. I do wish I positively knew that God had forgiven and accepted me. May 6. Last evening Clara Ray had a little party, and I was there. She has a great knack at getting the right sort of people together and of making them enjoy themselves. I sang several songs and so did Clara, but they all said my voice was finer and in better training than hers. It is delightful to be with cultivated, agreeable people. I could have stayed all night, but mother sent for me before anyone else had thought of going. May 7. I have been on a charming excursion today with Clara Ray and all her set. I was rather tired, but had an invitation to a concert this evening which I could not resist. July 21st. So much has been going on that I have not had time to write. There is no end to the picnics, drives, parties, etc. this summer. I am afraid that I am not getting on at all. My prayers are dull and short and full of wandering thoughts. I am brimful of vivacity and good humor in company, and as soon as I get home I am stupid and peevish. I suppose this will always be so, as it has always been, and I declare I would rather be so than such a vapid, flat creature as Mary Jones, or such a dull, heavy one as Big Lucy Merrill. July 24th. Clara Ray says the girls think me reckless and imprudent in speech. I have a good mind not to go with her set any more. I am afraid I have been a good deal dazzled by the attentions I have received of light, and now comes this blow at my vanity. On the whole I fell greatly out of sorts this evening. July 28th. People talk about happiness to be found in a Christian life. I wonder why I do not find more. On Sundays I am pretty good, and always seem to start afresh, but on weekdays I am drawn along with those about me. All my pleasures are innocent ones. There is surely no harm in going to concerts, driving out, singing, and making little visits. But these things distract me. They absorb me. They make religious duties irksome. I almost wish I could shut myself up in a cell, and so get out of the reach of temptation. The truth is the journey heavenward is all uphill. I have to force myself to keep on. The wonder is that anybody gets there with so much to oppose. So little to help one. July 29th. It is high time to stop and think. I have been like one running a race, and am stopping to take a breath. I do not like the way in which things have been going on of late. I feel restless and ill at ease. I see that if I would be happy in God, I must give Him all. And there is a wicked reluctance to do that. I want Him, but I want to have my own way too. I want to walk humbly and softly before Him, and I want to go where I shall be admired and applauded. To whom shall I yield, to God, or to myself? July 30th. I met Dr. Cabot today and could not help asking the question, Is it right for me to sing and play in company when all I do it for is to be admired? Are you sure it is all you do it for, he returned? Oh, I said, I suppose there may be a sprinkling of desire to entertain and please, mixed with the love of display. Do you suppose that your love of display, allowing you have it, would be forever slain by your merely refusing to sing in company? I thought it might give it a pretty hard blow, I said, if not its death blow. Meanwhile, in punishing yourself, you punish your poor innocent friends, he said, laughing. No, child, go on singing. God has given you this power of entertaining and gratifying your friends. But pray without ceasing that you may sing from pure benevolence and not from pure self-love. Why, do people pray about such things as that? I cried. Of course they do. Why, I would pray about my little finger if my little finger went astray. I looked at his little finger, but saw no signs of its becoming schismatic. August 3. This morning I took great delight in praying for my little scholars, and went to Sunday School as on wings. But on reaching my seat, what was my horror to find? Maria Perry there. Oh, your seat has changed, said she. I am to have half your class, and I like this seat better than those higher up. I suppose you don't care. But I do care, I returned, and you have taken my very best children, the very sweetest and the very prettiest. I shall speak to Mr. Williams about it directly. At any rate I would not fly into such a fury, she said. It is just as pleasant to me to have pretty children to teach as it is to you. Mr. Williams said he had no doubt you would be glad to divide your class with me as it is so large, and I doubt if you gain anything by speaking to him. There was not time for further discussion as school was about to begin. I went to my new seat with great disgust, and found it very inconvenient. The children could not cluster around me as they did before, and I got on with the lesson very badly. I am sure Maria Perry has no gift at teaching little children, and I feel quite vexed and disappointed. This has not been a profitable Sunday, and I am now going to bed cheerless and uneasy. August 9. Mr. Williams called this evening to say that I am to have my old seat and all the children again. All the mothers had been to see him or had written him notes about it and requested that I might continue to teach them. Mr. Williams said he hoped I would go on teaching for twenty years, and as fast as his little girls grew old enough to come to Sunday school, he should want me to take charge of them. I should have been greatly elated by these compliments, but for the display I made of myself to Maria Perry on Sunday. Oh, that I could learn to bridle my unlucky tongue. January 15, 1835. Today I am twenty. That sounds very old, yet I feel pretty much as I did before. I have begun to visit some of mother's poor folks with her, and am astonished to see how they love her and how plainly they let her talk to them. As a general rule, I do not think poor people are very interesting, and they are always ungrateful. We went first to see old Jacob Stone. I have been there a good many times with the baskets of nice things mother takes such comfort in sending him, but I never would go in. I was shocked to see how worn away he was. He seemed in great distress of mine and begged mother to pray with him. I do not see how she could. I am perfectly sure that no earthly power could ever induce me to go round praying on bare floors with people sitting, rocking, and staring all the time, as those two stone girls stared at mother. How tenderly she prayed for him. We then went to see Susan Green. She had made a carpet for her room by sewing together little bits of pieces given her, I suppose by persons for whom she works, for she goes about fitting and making carpets. It looked bright and cheerful. She had a nice bed in the corner, covered with white quilt, and some little ornaments were arranged about the room. Mother complimented her on her neatness, and said a queen might sleep in such a bed as that, and she hoped she found it as comfortable as it looked. Mercy on us! she cried out. It ain't to sleep in. I sleep in the loft, that I climb to by a ladder every night. Mother looked a little amused, and then she sat and listened patiently to a long account of how the poor old thing had invested her money, how Mr. Jones did not pay the interest regularly, and how Mr. Stevens hangled about the percentage. After we came away I asked Mother how she could listen to such a rigmarole impatience, and what good she suppose she had done by her visit, why the poor creature likes to show off her bright carpet and nice bed, her chairs, her vases, and her knick-knacks, and she likes to talk about her beloved money and her bank stock. I may not have done her any good, but I have given her a pleasure, and so have you. Why, I hardly spoke a word. Yes, but your mere presence gratified her, and if she ever gets into trouble she will feel kindly towards us for the sake of our sympathy with her pleasures and will let us sympathize with her sorrows. I confess this did not seem a privilege to be coveted. She's not nice at all, and takes snuff. We went next to see Bridget Shannon. Mother had lost sight of her for some years, and had just heard that she was sick and in great want. We found her in bed, there was no furniture in the room, and three little half-naked children sat with their bare feet and some ashes where there had been a little fire. Three such disconsolate faces I never saw. Mother sent me to the nearest bakers for bread. I nearly ran all the way, and I hardly know which I enjoyed most. Mother's eagerness in distributing, or the children's in clutching out and devouring it. I'm going to cut up one or two old dresses to make the poor things something to cover them. One of them has lovely hair that would curl beautifully if it were only brushed out. I told her to come see me tomorrow. She's so very pretty. Those few visits used up the very time I usually spend in drawing, but on the whole I'm glad I went with Mother because it has gratified her. Besides, one must either stop reading the Bible altogether, or else leave off spending one's whole time in just doing easy, pleasant things one likes to do. January 20th. The little Shannon girl came, and I washed her face and hands, brushed out her hair, made it curl in lovely golden ringlets all around her sweet face, and carried her in great triumph to Mother. Look at the dear little thing, Mother, I cried. Doesn't she look like a line of poetry? You foolish, romantic child, quoth Mother. She looks, to me, like a very ordinary line of prose. A slice of bread and butter and a piece of gingerbread mean more to her than these elaborate ringlets possibly can. They get in her eyes and make her neck cold. See, they are dripping with water, and the child is all in a shiver. So saying, Mother folded a towel round its neck to catch the falling drops, and went for bread and butter, of which the child consumed a quantity that was absolutely appalling. To crown it all, the ungrateful little thing would not so much as look at me from that moment, but clung to Mother, turning her back upon me in supreme contempt. Moral. Mothers occasionally know more than their daughters do.