esolved in a vague hasty way, that she was going
to do differently; and really, how little good, or change, had come from
the resolution. She didn't think, to begin with, that she was any worse
than the rest, or that she needed changing any more, but rather any
thing, than be like Mr. Congreve! So she summed up all she knew of him,
resolved on what was disagreeable, and began to model herself
accordingly. So to begin with she was no longer so hasty or bitter, in
speech I mean, for her inner-self was not touched, she only kept it all
to herself now, instead of speaking it out as formerly, but if she
thought herself changed there, she was the only one deceived, for our
inner minds do not always require the aid of language to photograph
themselves before the world. Next, instead of staying with the girls out
of store hours, and running the risk of losing her temper, she held
herself sternly aloof, always in the security of her own room, and at
the end of a week was apt to say to herself with some satisfaction:

"There, I surely have done well; haven't been mad with any one this
week, which is more than the other girls can say;" and there never came
any thought that the sisters were hurt over her manner, for, indeed, she
had worked herself up to the bitter belief, that they did not want her,
she was so ugly, and so unlike them in all ways.

Now what puzzled her was the girls. Here she had worked (yes, she
thought she had worked), she certainly ought to be improved, and yet
they seemed to think no more of her than before. Way down in Olive's
heart, was a longing,--choked and starved, that was beginning to assert
itself. When home held mother and father and everything that could make
a girl contented, she had not felt, or rather, listened to it; she
compelled herself to be without it; but now, when they were left alone,
when their daily life and happiness was so utterly dependent upon each
other, she began to realize how she was out of the loving circle that
bound her sisters together, and what a gulf of her own make, seemed to
lie between them. She stood beside it in frequent contemplation, but
never recognized her own handiwork, so she eyed it bitterly, and thought
them cruelly unkind.

This was what she was thinking about as she plunged through the storm,
looking like an animated snow-figure, so powdered was she; and regarding
herself for a moment, Olive went round to the back door, so as to
dispose of her ladened garmen