e nobler, inner nature,
the elevation of existence itself? My little garden ground! thought
Lois; is this indeed all? And what would Mr. Caruthers think, if he
could see me now? Think he had been cheated, and that I am not what he
thought I was. It is no matter what he thinks; I shall never see him
again; it will not be best that I should ever pay Mrs. Wishart a visit
again, even if she should ask me; not in New York. I suppose the Isles
of Shoals would be safe enough. There would be nobody there. Well--I
like gardening. And it is great fun to gather the peas when they are
large enough; and it is fun to pick strawberries; and it is fun to do
everything, generally. I like it all. But if I could, if I had a
chance, which I cannot have, I would like, and enjoy, the other sort of
thing too. I could be a good deal more than I am, _if_ I had the
opportunity.

Lois was getting rested by this time, and she gathered up her tools
again, with the thought that breakfast would taste good. I suppose a
whiff of the fumes of coffee preparing in the house was borne out to
her upon the air, and suggested the idea. And as she went in she
cheerfully reflected that their plain house was full of comfort, if not
of beauty; and that she and her sisters were doing what was given them
to do, and therefore what they were meant to do; and then came the
thought, so sweet to the servant who loves his Master, that it is all
_for_ the Master; and that if he is pleased, all is gained, the utmost,
that life can do or desire. And Lois went in, trilling low a sweet
Methodist hymn, to an air both plaintive and joyous, which somehow--as
many of the old Methodist tunes do--expressed the plaintiveness and the
joyousness together with a kind of triumphant effect.

"O tell me no more of this world's vain store!
The time for such trifles with me now is o'er."

Lois had a voice exceedingly sweet and rich; an uncommon contralto; and
when she sang one of these hymns, it came with its fall power. Mrs.
Armadale heard her, and murmured a "Praise the Lord!" And Charity,
getting the breakfast, heard her; and made a different comment.

"Were you meaning, now, what you were singing when you came in?" she
asked at breakfast.

"What I was singing?" Lois repeated in astonishment.

"Yes, what you were singing. You sang it loud enough and plain enough;
ha' you forgotten? Did you mean it?"

"One should always mean what one sings," said Lois gravely.

"So