of
fashion; and that there were new ways of teaching even reading,
spelling, and writing.

She knew these things, and cautioned herself against discontent with the
progress of society, because she happened to be left alone behind. She
suspected, too, that the hand would not get well. The thing that she was
most certain of was, that she must not rack her brain with fears and
speculations as to what was to become of her. Her business was to wait
till she could find something to do, or learn what she was to suffer.
She thought she had better wait here. There was no call to any other
place. This was more familiar and more pleasant to her than any
other--the Morells' cottage being far away, and out of the question--and
here she could live with the utmost possible cheapness. So here she
staid.

The hand got well, as far as the pain was concerned, sooner than she had
expected. But it was in a different way from what she had expected. It
was left wholly useless. And, though the time was not long, it had
wrought as time does. It had worn out her clothes; it had emptied her
little purse. It had carried away every thing she had in the world but
the very few clothes she had on. She had been verging towards the
resolution she now took for three or four weeks. She took it finally
while sitting on the bench near the fort. It was in the dusk; for her
gown, though she had done her best to mend it with her left hand, was in
no condition to show by daylight. She was alone in the dusk, rather
hungry and very cold. The sea was dashing surlily upon the rocks below,
and there was too much mist to let any stars shine upon her. It was all
dreary enough; yet she was not very miserable, for her mind was made up.
She had made up her mind to go into the work-Pouse the next day. While
she was thinking calmly about it a fife began to play a sort of jig in
the yard of the fort behind her. Her heart heaved to her throat and the
tears gushed from her eyes. In this same spot, fifty years before, she
had heard what seemed to her the same fife. Her father was then sitting
on the grass, and she was between his knees, helping to tassel the tail
of a little kite they were going to fly; and, when the merry fife had
struck up, her father had snatched up her gay Harlequin that lay within
reach, and made him shake his legs and arms to the music. She heard her
own laugh again now, through that long course of fifty years, and in the
midst of these tears.

All t