ly become
darkened. He said he did not know how he should bear his misfortune;--he
was pretty sure he could not bear it. It seemed so long already since it
had happened! And when he thought of the long long days, and months, and
years, to the end of his life, and that he should never run and play,
and never be like other people, and never able to do the commonest
things without labour and trouble, he wished he was dead. He had rather
have died.

Agnes thought he must be miserable indeed, if he could venture to say
this to his mother. She glanced at her mother's face; but there was no
displeasure there. Mrs. Proctor said this feeling was very natural. She
had felt it herself, under smaller misfortunes than Hugh's: but she had
found that, though the prospect appears all strewn with troubles, they
come singly, and are not worth minding, after all. She told Hugh that,
when she was a little girl, very lazy--fond of her bed--fond of her
book--and not at all fond of washing and dressing----

"Why, mother, you!" exclaimed Hugh.

"Yes; that was the sort of little girl I was. Well, I was in despair,
one day, at the thought that I should have to wash, and clean my teeth,
and brush my hair, and put on every daily article of dress, every
morning, as long as I lived. There was nothing I disliked so much; and
yet it was the thing that must be done every day of my whole life."

"Did you tell anybody?" asked Hugh.

"No; I was ashamed to do that: but I remember I cried. You see how it
turns out. Grown people, who have got to do everything by habit, so
easily as not to think about it, wash and dress every morning, without
ever being weary of it. We do not consider so much as once a year what
we are doing at dressing-time, though at seven years old it is a very
laborious and tiresome affair to get ready for breakfast."

"It is the same about writing letters," observed Agnes. "The first
letter I ever wrote was to aunt Shaw; and it took so long, and was so
tiresome, that, when I thought of all the exercises I should have to
write for Miss Harold, and all the letters that I must send to my
relations when I grew up, I would have given everything I had in the
world not to have learned to write. Oh! how I pitied papa, when I saw
sometimes the pile of letters that were lying to go to the post!"

"And how do you like corresponding with Phil now?"

Agnes owned, with blushes, that she still dreaded the task for some days
before, and felt pa