re drawn,
And vexed by trifling cares,
While Thine eternal thought moves on
Thy undisturbed affairs."

There were compensations for being shut in to daily toil so early. The
mill itself had its lessons for us. But it was not, and could not be,
the right sort of life for a child, and we were happy in the knowledge
that, at the longest, our employment was only to be temporary.

When I took my next three months at the grammar school, everything
there was changed, and I too was changed. The teachers were kind, and
thorough in their instruction; and my mind seemed to have been ploughed
up during that year of work, so that knowledge took root in it easily.
It was a great delight to me to study, and at the end of the three
months the master told me that I was prepared for the high school.

But alas! I could not go. The little money I could earn--one dollar a
week, besides the price of my board--was needed in the family, and I
must return to the mill. It was a severe disappointment to me, though I
did not say so at home. I did not at all accept the conclusion of a
neighbor whom I heard talking about it with my mother. His daughter was
going to the high school, and my mother was telling him how sorry she
was that I could not.

"Oh," he said, in a soothing tone, "my girl hasn't got any such
head-piece as yours has. Your girl doesn't need to go."

Of course I knew that whatever sort of a "head-piece" I had, I did need
and want just that very opportunity to study. I think the solution was
then formed, inwardly, that I would go to school again, some time,
whatever happened. I went back to my work, but now without enthusiasm.
I had looked through an open door that I was not willing to see shut
upon me.

I began to reflect upon life rather seriously for a girl of twelve or
thirteen. What was I here for? What could I make of myself? Must I
submit to be carried along with the current, and do just what everybody
else did? No: I knew I should not do that, for there was a certain
Myself who was always starting up with her own original plan or
aspiration before me, and who was quite indifferent as to what people,
generally thought.

Well, I would find out what this Myself was good for, and that she
should be! It was but the presumption of extreme youth. How gladly
would I know now, after these long years, just why I was sent into the
world, and whether I have in any degree fulfilled the purpose of my
being!

In the older t