learned the parts of speech, and their distinctions and inflexions; also, as far as her mother could recollect them, the rules of syntax. Against all this branch of study she revolted, as unintelligible. Writing compositions went better; but for the mechanical part of this exercise Mrs. Carpenter had no leisure. She did set Rotha a copy now and then; but writing and arithmetic for the most part got the go-by. What Mrs. Carpenter did she must do with her fingers plying the needle and her eyes on her work.
It helped them both, all this learning and teaching; reading and talking. It saved their life from being a dead monotony, and their minds from vegetating; and diverted them from sorrowful regrets and recollections. Life was quite active and stirring in the little rooms where they lived. Nevertheless, their physical nature did not thrive so well as the mental. Rotha was growing fast, and shooting up slender and pale, living too housed a life; and her mother began to lose freshness and to grow thin with too constant application. As the winter passed away, and warm weather opened the buds of the trees which in some places graced the city, these human plants seemed to wither more and more.
"O mother," said Rotha, standing at the window one day in the late spring, "I think the city is just horrid!"
"Never mind, my child. We have a comfortable home, and a great deal to be thankful for."
"If I could only see the butterflies in the fields again!" sighed Rotha. Her mother echoed the sigh, but this time said nothing.
"And I would like a good big tumbler of real milk, and some strawberries, and some of your bread and butter, mother."
"Yes, my child."
"Mother, how comes it that aunt Serena is rich, and you and I are so poor?"
"You have asked me that before."
"But you didn't tell me."
"I told you, it was in consequence of the different marriages we made."
"Yes, I know. But you were not poor before you married father, were you?"
"No."
"Then that is what I mean. What is become of it? Where is your part?"
"Nowhere, dear."
"What became of it then, mother?"
"I never had it, Rotha. You had better get your book and read. That would be wiser than asking useless questions."
"But why didn't you have it, mother? Did aunt Serena--did your sister--get it all?"
"Get your book, Rotha."
"Mother, please tell me. I shall know the answer if you do not tell me."
"Your aunt had it all," Mrs. Carpenter said very quietly.
"Why?"
"Your grandfather thought there were good reasons."
"_Were_ there, mother?"
"I do not think so. But let it be, Rotha, and never mention this subject to me again. Different people have different ways of looking at the same thing; and people are often very honestly mistaken. You must not judge others by yourself."
"Mother, I think that was very unjust," said Rotha, in immediate disregard of this precept.
"You must not think it was meant so."
"But, mother, if a wrong thing is honestly meant, does that make it right?"
"There is but one rule of right and wrong; it is God's rule."
"Then what difference does it make, whether it was 'honestly meant' or no?"
"A good deal, I should say. Don't you think it does?"
"I do not believe aunt Serena means it honestly, though. If she was a good woman, she wouldn't keep what belongs to you. She must _know_ it is wrong!"
"Rotha, you are paining me," said Mrs. Carpenter, the tears springing to her eyes. "This is very foolish talk, and very improper. Get your book."
"I don't wonder you don't want to go and see her!" said Rotha indignantly as she obeyed the order. "O mother! if I could just once roll in the grass again!"
At this moment came a cry from the street--
"Straw--berr_ees!_"
"What's that?" exclaimed Rotha springing to the window. "Mother, it's a woman with a basket full of something red. Strawberries! it's strawberries!"
The accent of this word went to the mother's heart.
"It's early yet," she said. "They will be very dear. By and by they will be plenty and cheaper."
"Strawberries!" repeated Rotha, following the woman with her eyes. "Mother, I think I do hate New York. The sight of those strawberries makes me wild. I want Carlo, and the ducks, and my old pussy cat, and the garden; and--Oh, I want father!"
The natural conclusion to this burst was a passion of weeping. Mrs. Carpenter was fain to lay down her work, and put her arms round the child, and shed some tears with her; though even as they fell she was trying to soothe Rotha into patience and self-command. Two virtues of which as yet the girl knew nothing, except that her mother was a very lovely and constant exemplification of them. Nobody ever expected either from Rotha; although this was the first violent expression of grief and longing that her mother had seen since their removal to New York, and it took her by surprise. Rotha had seemed to acquiesce with tolerable ease in the new conditions of things; and this was Mrs. Carpenter's first notification that under all the outside calm there lay a power of wish and pain. They wept together for a while, the mother and child, which was a sort of relief to both of them.
"Mother," said Rotha, as she dried her tears and struggled to prevent more coming,--"I could bear it, only that I don't see any end to it."
"Well, my child? what then?" said the mother tenderly.
"I don't feel as if I could bear this always."
"There might be much worse, Rotha."
"That don't make this one bit better, mother. It makes it harder."
"We must trust God."
"For what? I don't see."
"Trust him, that he will keep his promises. I do."
"What promises?"
"He has said, that none of them that trust in him shall be desolate."
"But 'not desolate'! That is not enough," said. Rotha. "I want more than that. I want to be happy; and I want to be comfortable."
"Are you not comfortable, my child?"
"No, mother," Rotha said with a sob.
"What do you want?" Mrs. Carpenter spoke with a gentle soft accent, which half soothed, half reproached Rotha, though she did not mean any reproach. Rotha, nevertheless went on.
"I want nearly everything, mother! everything that we haven't got."
"It would not make you happy, if you had it."
"Why not? Why wouldn't it?"
"Because nothing of that sort can. There is only one thing that makes people happy."
"I know; you mean religion. But I am not religious. And if I _was_ happy, mother, I should want those other things too."
"If you were happy--you would be happy," Mrs. Carpenter said with a slight smile.
"That would not hinder my wanting other things. I should want, as I do now, nice dresses, and a nice house, and books, and not to have to cook and wash dishes, and to take a ride sometimes and a walk sometimes--not a walk to market--I want all that, mother."
"I would give it you if I could, Rotha. If I had it and did not give it to you, you would know that I had some very good reason."
"I might think you were mistaken," said Rotha.
"We cannot think that of the only wise God," Mrs. Carpenter said with that same faint, sweet smile again; "so we must fall back upon the other alternative."
Rotha was silenced.
"We know that he loves us, dear; and 'they that trust in the Lord shall not want any good thing.' As soon as it would be good for us, if that time ever comes, we shall have it. As for me, if you were only one of those that trust in him, I should hardly have a wish left."
Rotha dried her tears and went at her work. But the summer, as the days passed, was a trial to both of them. Accustomed to sweet country air and free motion about the farm, the closeness, the heat, the impurities, and the confinement of the city were extremely hard to bear. They made it also very difficult to work. Often it seemed to Mrs. C
arpenter, unused to such a sedentary life and close bending over her needle, that she must stop and wait till it grew cooler, or till she herself felt a little refreshed. But the necessities of living drove her on, as they drive so many, pitilessly. She could not intermit her work. Rents were due just the same in summer as in winter, and meat and bread were no cheaper. She grew very thin and pale; and Rotha too, though in a far less degree, shewed the wilting and withering effect of the life they led. Rarely a walk could be had; the streets were hot and disagreeable; and