with what is due to
myself. The spirit of that prayer I shall constantly endeavor
to maintain. What ought to be done for a few months to come is
plain, and, as I proceed, the view will open.'

TRIAL.

The death of her father brought in its train a disappointment as keen
as Margaret could well have been called on to bear. For two years
and more she had been buoyed up to intense effort by the promise of
a visit to Europe, for the end of completing her culture. And as the
means of equitably remunerating her parents for the cost of such
a tour, she had faithfully devoted herself to the teaching of the
younger members of the family. Her honored friends, Professor and Mrs.
Farrar, who were about visiting the Old World, had invited her to be
their companion; and, as Miss Martineau was to return to England in
the ship with them, the prospect before her was as brilliant with
generous hopes as her aspiring imagination could conceive. But now, in
her journal of January 1, 1836, she writes:--

'The New-year opens upon me under circumstances inexpressibly
sad. I must make the last great sacrifice, and, apparently,
for evil to me and mine. Life, as I look forward, presents a
scene of struggle and privation only. Yet "I bate not a jot of
heart," though much "of hope." My difficulties are not to
be compared with those over which many strong souls have
triumphed. Shall I then despair? If I do, I am not a strong
soul.'

Margaret's family treated her, in this exigency, with the grateful
consideration due to her love, and urgently besought her to take the
necessary means, and fulfil her father's plan. But she could not
make up her mind to forsake them, preferring rather to abandon her
long-cherished literary designs. Her struggles and her triumph thus
appear in her letters:--

'_January 30, 1836_.--I was a great deal with Miss Martineau,
while in Cambridge, and love her more than ever. She is to
stay till August, and go to England with Mr. and Mrs. Farrar.
If I should accompany them I shall be with her while in
London, and see the best literary society. If I should go,
you will be with mother the while, will not you?[A] Oh,
dear E----, you know not how I fear and tremble to come to
a decision. My temporal all seems hanging upon it, and the
prospect is most alluring. A few thousand dollars would make
all so easy, so safe. As it is, I cannot