round running north
and south, a few rods beyond the old house, and desired him to build
upon it. This he was now doing, and we expected to move into our new
house before autumn.

All the Morgesons wished to put money in a company, as soon as father
could prove that it would be profitable. They were ready to own shares
in the ships which he expected to build, when it was certain that
they would make lucky voyages. He declined their offers, but they all
"knuckled" to the man who had been bold enough to break the life-long
stagnation of Surrey, and approved his plans as they matured. His mind
was filled with the hope of creating a great business which should
improve Surrey. New streets had been cut through his property and that
of grandfather, who, narrow as he was, could not resist the popular
spirit; lots had been laid out, and cottages had gone up upon them. To
matters of minor importance father gave little heed; his domestic life
was fast becoming a habit. The constant enlargement of his schemes was
already a necessary stimulant.

I did not go back to Mrs. Desire's school. Mother said that I must be
useful at home. She sent me to Temperance, and Temperance sent me to
play, or told me to go "a visitin'." I did not care to visit, for in
consequence of being turned out of school, which was considered an
indelible disgrace and long remembered, my schoolmates regarded me in
the light of a Pariah, and put on insufferably superior airs when they
saw me. So, like Veronica, I amused myself, and passed days on the
sea-shore, or in the fields and woods, mother keeping me in long
enough to make a square of patchwork each day and to hear her read
a Psalm--a duty which I bore with patience, by guessing when the
"Selahs" would come in, and counting them. But wherever I was, or
whatever I did, no feeling of beauty ever stole into my mind. I never
turned my face up to the sky to watch the passing of a cloud, or mused
before the undulating space of sea, or looked down upon the earth with
the curiosity of thought, or spiritual aspiration. I was moved and
governed by my sensations, which continually changed, and passed
away--to come again, and deposit vague ideas which ignorantly haunted
me. The literal images of all things which I saw were impressed on my
shapeless mind, to be reproduced afterward by faculties then latent.
But what satisfaction was that? Doubtless the ideal faculty was
active in Veronica from the beginning; in me it w