"It is not kind, Mr. Burroughs, to laugh at me, or to try to confuse
me in this way," said she steadily. "No doubt, you know what I mean;
and why do you wish to force me into saying, that the more I see of
the life and thoughts and manners of such people as Mrs. Legrange
and you, and even my own little Sunshine, now so far away from me,
the less fit I feel to associate with them? And, just because it is
so pleasant to me, I feel that I ought to go back at once to the
home and the duties and the people where I belong. I am but a poor
country-girl, sir, hardly taught in any thing except the love of
God, and the wish to do something before I die to make my
fellow-creatures a little happier or more comfortable than I find
them. Let me go to my work, and out of it I will make my life."
Perhaps never had the self-contained heart of the young girl so
framed itself in words; certainly never had Mr. Burroughs so fully
read it: and when she finished, and, neither turning from him nor
toward him, steadfastly set her eyes forward, as one who sees mapped
out before him the path he is to tread through all the coming years,
he took her hand in his with a sudden impulse of tenderness,--
"Dora, you will love some one yet; and love will make you happy.
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