xercised
a most favorable influence over the poor girl's life. It brought her
soul back to her body, and spoke to her of wants and their supply,--of
debts, of creditors,--of fish, and sea-weed, and the market,--of bread,
and doctor's bills,--of her poor old father, and of her mother. She came
back to earth. Now, henceforth, the support of the household was with
her. Bondo Emmins might serve her father,--she had no desire to prevent
what was so welcome to the wretched old man,--but for herself, her
mother, the house, no favor from him!

And thus Clarice rose up to rival Bondo in her ready courage. When her
father, at last careful, at last anxious, thoughtful of the future,
began to express his fear, he met the ready assurance of his daughter
that she should be able to provide all they should ever want; let him
not be troubled; when the spring came, she would show him.

The spring came, and Clarice set to work as never in her industrious
life before. Day after day she gathered sea-weed, dried it, and carried
it to town. She went out with her mother in the fishing-boat, and the
two women were equal in strength and courage to almost any two men of
the Bay. She filled the empty fish-barrels,--and promised to double the
usual number. She dried wagon-loads of finny treasure, and she made good
bargains with the traders. No one was so active, no one bade fair to
turn the summer to such profit as Clarice. She had come back to flesh
and blood.--John came back from Patmos.

Her face grew brown with tan; it was not lovely as a fair ghost's, any
longer; it was ruddy,--and her limbs grew strong. Bondo Emmins marked
these symptoms, and took courage. People generally said, "She is well
over her grief, and has set her heart on getting rich. There is that
much of her mother in her." Others considered that Emmins was in the
secret, and at the bottom of her serenity and diligence.

Dame Briton and her spouse were not one whit wiser than their
neighbors. They could not see that any half-work was impossible with
Clarice,--that, if she had resolved, for their sake, to live as people
must, who have bodies to respect and God-originated wants to supply, she
must live by a ceaseless activity. Because she had ascended far beyond
tears, lamentation, helplessness, they thought she had forgotten.

Yes, they came to this conclusion, though now and then, not often,
generally on some pleasant Sunday, when all her work was done, Clarice
would go down