Returning to
a country home at an early age, she had been made the companion of
her father; entering into all his literary tastes, and receiving
constantly, from association with him, that manly influence which a
woman's mind needs to develop its completeness. Living the whole
year in the country, the Fergusons developed within themselves a
multiplicity of resources. They read and studied, and discussed
subjects with their father; for, as we all know, the discussion of
moral and social questions has been from the first, and always will
be, a prime source of amusement in New-England families; and many of
them keep up, with great spirit, a family debating society, in which
whoever hath a psalm, a doctrine, or an interpretation, has free
course.

Rose had never been into fashionable life, technically so called. She
had not been brought out: there never had been a mile-stone set up to
mark the place where "her education was finished;" and so she had gone
on unconsciously,--studying, reading, drawing, and cultivating
herself from year to year, with her head and hands always so full of
pleasurable schemes and plans, that there really seemed to be no room
for any thing else. We have seen with what interest she co-operated
with Grace in the various good works of the factory village in which
her father held shares, where her activity found abundant scope, and
her beauty and grace of manner made her a sort of idol.

Rose had once or twice in her life been awakened to
self-consciousness, by applicants rapping at the front door of her
heart; but she answered with such a kind, frank, earnest, "No, I thank
you, sir," as made friends of her lovers; and she entered at once into
pleasant relations with them. Her nature was so healthy, and free from
all morbid suggestion; her yes and no so perfectly frank and positive,
that there seemed no possibility of any tragedy caused by her.

Why did not John fall in love with Rose? Why did not he, O most
sapient senate of womanhood? why did not your brother fall in love
with that nice girl you know of, who grew up with you all at his very
elbow, and was, as everybody else could see, just the proper person
for him?

Well, why didn't he? There is the doctrine of election. "The election
hath obtained it; and the rest were blinded." John was some six years
older than Rose. He had romped with her as a little girl, drawn her on
his sled, picked up her hair-pins, and worn her tippet, when they had