She was not one to repeat the tales
which came to her ears; but when, as in this instance, her sympathies
were touched and she felt that her story might bear with it a moral, it
might be really worth her while to repeat it to Hester.

"Valehurst is very beautiful, Hester. We recognize that; but it cannot
bring happiness to those who dwell in it. Mrs. Vail has a great sorrow.
What it is, I do not know. I did not care to inquire. Robert told me
that his mother, years ago, had a bereavement from which she has never
recovered, and to which she has never become reconciled. The servants
speak as though she were a woman saddened by some dreadful experience."

"But Helen says she is very cheerful and can never do enough to make
others happy."

"Outwardly, perhaps. From what I have learned, she is one who has
strength of character enough to keep her sorrows to herself and not
burden others. Of course, she would try to make Helen and every one else
happy, even though she were most miserable herself. I would not have
spoken of the matter, had I not thought you were estimating one's
happiness by the amount of material wealth one possessed.

"Poor Mrs. Vail! I am a happier woman than she. I have just my little
home and my girl, but I am very content."

"So am I, Aunt Debby." She pressed Debby Alden's arm closer within her
hand. Then she added, "Wasn't it a good thing that I was left to you.
Wouldn't it have been dreadful if I had been taken somewhere else and
you would have been left alone. Just think how lonely we would have
been."

"Yes, it would have been hard; but it didn't happen that way. It was
intended that you should be my girl."

"You mustn't think that I was discontented because I wished that you and
I lived in a mansion. I am not one bit discontented. I was just
wishing."

"Learn to be contented. Folks are miserable otherwise. The Aldens,
taking them as a family, were not complainers or grumblers--except Ezra,
and how he ever came by it, I do not know. He was never contented. He
wouldn't go to school, and he wouldn't farm, and he wouldn't be
satisfied anywhere or with anything."

"Ezra? Who was he, Aunt Debby? I never heard you mention his name
before."

"He was my oldest brother. He would be a man of sixty if he were living
now. I never mentioned him, because he is more of a memory than anything
else. He was only sixteen when he ran off west. He wrote a few times.
The letters were two or three years apart,