amuse,--but I fear they might become monotonous to
the reader.

I had become a hard student. My mother wished me to fit myself for a
teacher. It was enough.

It was not, however, without many struggles. I had acquired this
submission to her wishes. Must I forever be a slave to hours? Must I
weave for others the chain whose daily restraint chafed and galled my
free, impatient spirit? Must I bear the awful burden of authority, that
unlovely appendage to youth? Must I voluntarily assume duties to which
the task of the criminal that tramps, tramps day after day the revolving
tread-mill, seems light; for that is mere physical labor and monotony,
not the wear and tear of mind, heart, and soul?

"What else can you do, my child?" asked my mother.

"I could sew."

My mother smiled and shook her head.

"Your skill does not lie in handicraft," she said, "that would never
do."

"I could toil as a servant. I would far rather do it."

I had worked myself up to a belief in my own sincerity when I said this,
but had any tongue but mine suggested the idea, how would my aspiring
blood have burned with indignation.

"It is the most honorable path to independence a friendless young girl
can choose,--almost the only one," said my mother, suppressing a deep
sigh.

"Oh, mother! I am not friendless. How can I be, with you and Peggy?"

"But we are not immortal, my child. Every day loosens my frail hold of
earthly things, and even Peggy's strong arm will in time grow weak. Your
young strength will then be _her_ stay and support."

"Oh, mother! as if I could live when you are taken from me! What do I
live for, but you? What have I on earth but thee? Other children have
father and mother, and brothers and sisters, and friends. If one is
taken from them, they have others left to love and care for them, but I
have nobody in the wide world but you. I could not, would not live
without you."

I spoke with passionate earnestness. Life without my mother! The very
thought was death! I looked in her pale, beautiful face. It was more
than pale,--it was wan--it was sickly. There was a purplish shadow under
her soft, dark eyes, which I had not observed before, and her figure
looked thin and drooping. I gazed into the sad, loving depths of her
eyes, till mine were blinded with tears, when throwing my arms across
her lap, I laid my face upon them, and wept and sobbed as if the doom of
the motherless were already mine.

"Grief does not kill, m