nless a woman
has to earn her living by teaching, what does it matter to her how much
hydrogen there is in a drop of rain-water, or in what year Hannibal
crossed the Alps? But it will matter to her infinitely, for the
remainder of her mortal existence, whether she is one of those graceful,
sympathetic beings, whose pathway is paved by the love of Man and the
friendship of Woman; or one of that much-to-be-blamed, if
somewhat-to-be-pitied, sisterhood, who are unloved because they are
unlovely, and unlovely because they are unloved.

It is not good for man, woman, or child to be alone; and the
companionship of girls of her own age did much toward deepening and
broadening Elisabeth's character. The easy give-and-take of perfect
equality was beneficial to her, as it is to everybody She did not forget
her Cousin Anne--the art of forgetting was never properly acquired by
Elisabeth; but new friendships and new interests sprang up out of the
grave of the old one, and changed its resting-place from a cemetery into
a garden. Elisabeth Farringdon could not be happy--could not exist, in
fact--without some absorbing affection and interest in life. There are
certain women to whom "the trivial round" and "the common task" are
all-sufficing who ask nothing more of life than that they shall always
have a dinner to order or a drawing-room to dust, and to whom the
delinquencies of the cook supply a drama of never-failing attraction and
a subject of never-ending conversation; but Elisabeth was made of other
material; vital interests and strong attachments were indispensable to
her well-being. The death of Anne Farringdon had left a cruel blank in
the young life which was none too full of human interest to begin with;
but this blank was to a great measure filled up by Elisabeth's adoration
for the beloved personage who ruled over Fox How, and by her devoted
friendship for Felicia Herbert.

In after years she often smiled tenderly when she recalled the absolute
worship which the girls at Fox How offered to their "Dear Lady," as they
called her, and of which the "Dear Lady" herself was supremely
unconscious. It was a feeling of loyalty stronger than any ever excited
by crowned heads (unless, perhaps, by the Pope himself), as she
represented to their girlish minds the embodiment of all that was right,
as well as of all that was mighty--and represented it so perfectly that
through all their lives her pupils never dissociated herself from the
r