She has no
heresies, she can prove every assertion from the Bible, her principles
are as firm as adamant and her heart as tender as a mother's. Still,
marriage and motherhood have been her education; if the Connecticut,
school-teacher had not realized her worth, she might have become what she
dreaded her own daughters becoming--an old maid with uncheerful views of
life. In planning their future she looked into her own heart instead of
into theirs.
The children were lovely blossomings of the seed in the hearts of both
parents; of seeds, that in them had not borne abundant fruitage.
"How did two such cranky old things ever have such happy children!" she
exclaimed one day to her husband.
"Perhaps they will become what we stopped short of being," he replied.
Graham West was something of a philosopher; rather too much of a
philosopher for his wife's peace of mind. To her sorrow she had learned
that he had no "business tact," he could not even scrape a comfortable
living off his scrubby little farm.
But I began with Linnet and fell to discoursing about her mother; it was
Linnet, as she appeared in her grayish brown dress with a knot of crimson
at her throat, running down the stairway, that suggested her mother's
thought to me.
"Linnet is almost growing up," she had said to herself as she removed her
cap for her customary afternoon nap. This afternoon nap refreshed her
countenance and kept her from looking six years older than her husband.
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