She went on, not merely this evening, but afterwards, to tell me of the different efforts she had made to earn a living for herself with the help of kind friends.

“At last,” she said, “I bethought me of my handwriting, of the ‘elegant’ notes which used to receive such praise; and when I met Mr. Clarkson one day in Boston, I asked him what price he would pay me for it.  I will tell you that he was very kind, very thoughtful for me.  He fancied the work he had to offer would be distasteful to me; but he has made it as agreeable, as easy to be performed, as can be done.  My aunt was willing to come here with me.  She has just enough to live upon herself, and we are likely to live comfortably together here.  So I am trying that sort of work you praised so much when you were with me; and I shall be glad, if you can go on and show me what inspiration can bring into it.”

So day after day I saw her, and evening after evening we renewed the old talks.  The summer passed on, and the early morning found her daily at her work, every day pursuing an unaccustomed labor.  Her spirit seemed more happy and joyous than ever.  She seemed far more at home than in the midst of crowded streets and gay, brilliant rooms.  Her expression was more earnest and spiritual than ever,—­her life, I thought, gayer and happier.

So I thought till one evening, when we had walked far away down the little stream that led out of the town.  We stopped to look into its waters, while she leaned against the trunk of a tree overshadowed it.  We watched the light and shade that nickered below, the shadow of the clover-leaves, of the long reeds that hung almost across the stream.  The quiet was enhanced by the busy motion below, the bustle of little animal life, the skimming of the water-insects, the tender rustling of the leaves, and the gentle murmuring of the stream itself.  Then I looked at her, from the golden hair upon her head down to its shadow in the brook below.  I saw her hands folded over each other, and, suddenly, they looked to me very thin and white and very weary.  I looked at her again, and her whole posture was one of languor and weariness,—­the languor of the body, not a weariness of the soul.  There was a happy smile on the lips, and a gleam of happiness from under the half-closed eyes.  But, oh, so tired and faint did the slender body look that I almost feared to see the happier spirit leave it, as though it were incumbered by something which could not follow it.

“Margaret!” I exclaimed.  “You are wearing yourself away.  You were never made for such labor.  You cannot learn this sort of toil.  You are of the sunshine, to play above the dusty earth, to gladden the dreary places.  Look at my hands, that are large for work,—­at my heavy shoulders, fitted to bear the yoke.  Let me work for us both, and you shall still be the inspiration of my work, and the sunshine that makes it gold.  The work we talked of is drudgery for you; you cannot bear it.”