if she can be young in spirit at forty, let her show that she is
so.

I think that Mrs Dale was wrong. She would have joined that party on
the croquet ground, instead of remaining among the pea-sticks in her
sun-bonnet, had she done as I would have counselled her. Not a word
was spoken among the four that she did not hear. Those pea-sticks
were only removed from the lawn by a low wall and a few shrubs. She
listened, not as one suspecting, but simply as one loving. The voices
of her girls were very dear to her, and the silver ringing tones of
Lily's tongue were as sweet to her ears as the music of the gods. She
heard all that about Lady Hartletop, and shuddered at Lily's bold
sarcasm. And she heard Lily say that mamma would stay at home and
eat the peas, and said to herself sadly that that was now her lot in
life.

"Dear darling girl--and so it should be!"

It was thus her thoughts ran. And then, when her ear had traced them,
as they passed across the little bridge into the other grounds, she
returned across the lawn to the house with her burden on her arm,
and sat herself down on the step of the drawing-room window, looking
out on the sweet summer flowers and the smooth surface of the grass
before her.

Had not God done well for her to place her where she was? Had not her
lines been set for her in pleasant places? Was she not happy in her
girls,--her sweet, loving, trusting, trusty children? As it was to be
that her lord, that best half of herself, was to be taken from her in
early life, and that the springs of all the lighter pleasures were to
be thus stopped for her, had it not been well that in her bereavement
so much had been done to soften her lot in life and give it grace and
beauty? 'Twas so, she argued with herself, and yet she acknowledged
to herself that she was not happy. She had resolved, as she herself
had said often, to put away childish things, and now she pined for
those things which she so put from her. As she sat she could still
hear Lily's voice as they went through the shrubbery,--hear it when
none but a mother's ears would have distinguished the sound. Now that
those young men were at the Great House it was natural that her girls
should be there too. The squire would not have had young men to
stay with him had there been no ladies to grace his table. But for
her,--she knew that no one would want her there. Now and again she
must go, as otherwise her very existence, without going, would be a
th