“I have not fixed them up at all.  Mrs. Larkins only knows one cure for bad children, and that is beating them, and she always blames me for spoiling Annette, but I hardly know what to do with her.  I’ve scolded and scolded till my tongue is tired, whipping don’t seem to do her a bit of good, and I hate to put her out among strangers for fear that they will not treat her right, for after all she is very near to me.  She is my poor, dead Lucy’s child.  Sometimes when I get so angry with her that I feel as though I could almost shake the life out of her, the thought of her dying mother comes back to me and it seems to me as if I could see her eyes looking so wistfully on the child and turning so trustingly to me and saying, ’Mother, when I am gone won’t you take care of Annette, and try to keep her with you?’ And then all the anger dies out of me.  Poor child!  I don’t know what is going to become of her when my head is laid low.  I’m afraid she is born for trouble.  Nobody will ever put up with her as I do.  She has such an unhappy disposition.  She is not like any of my children ever were.”

“Yes.  I’ve often noticed that she does seem different from other children.  She never seems light-hearted and happy.”

“Yes, that is so.  She reminds me so of poor Lucy before she was born.  She even moans in her sleep like she used to do.  It was a dark day when Frank Miller entered my home and Lucy became so taken up with him.  It seemed to me as if my poor girl just worshiped him.  I did not feel that he was all right, and I tried to warn my dear child of danger, but what could an old woman like me do against him with his handsome looks and oily tongue.”

“Yes,” said her neighbor soothingly, “you have had a sad time, but still we cannot recall the dead past, and it is the living present with which we have to deal.  Annette needs wise guidance, a firm hand and a loving heart to deal with her.  To spoil her at home is only to prepare her for misery abroad.”

“I am afraid that I am not equal to the task.”

“If any man lack wisdom we are taught to ask it of One who giveth liberally to all men and upbraideth none.  There would be so much less stumbling if we looked earnestly within for ’the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’”

“Well,” said Mrs. Harcourt, Annette’s grandmother, “there is one thing about Annette that I like.  She is very attentive to her books.  If you want to keep that child out of mischief just put a book in her hand; but then she has her living to get and she can’t get it by nursing her hands and reading books.  She has got to work like the rest of us.”

“But why not give her a good education?  Doors are open to her which were closed against us.  This is a day of light and knowledge.  I don’t know much myself, but I mean to give my girls a chance.  I don’t believe in saying, let my children do as I have done, when I think some of us have done poorly enough digging and delving from morning till night.  I don’t believe the good Lord ever sent anybody into his light and beautiful world to be nothing but a drudge, and I just think it is because some take it so easy that others, who will do, have to take it so hard.”