“Glad souls, without reproach or blot,
  Who do His will, and know it not.”

Rose had a frank, open joyousness of nature, that shed around her a healthy charm, like fine, breezy weather, or a bright morning; making every one feel as if to be good were the most natural thing in the world.  She seemed to be thinking always and directly of matters in hand, of things to be done, and subjects under discussion, as much as if she were an impersonal being.

She had been educated with every solid advantage which old Boston can give to her nicest girls; and that is saying a good deal.  Returning to a country home at an early age, she had been made the companion of her father; entering into all his literary tastes, and receiving constantly, from association with him, that manly influence which a woman’s mind needs to develop its completeness.  Living the whole year in the country, the Fergusons developed within themselves a multiplicity of resources.  They read and studied, and discussed subjects with their father; for, as we all know, the discussion of moral and social questions has been from the first, and always will be, a prime source of amusement in New-England families; and many of them keep up, with great spirit, a family debating society, in which whoever hath a psalm, a doctrine, or an interpretation, has free course.

Rose had never been into fashionable life, technically so called.  She had not been brought out:  there never had been a mile-stone set up to mark the place where “her education was finished;” and so she had gone on unconsciously,—­studying, reading, drawing, and cultivating herself from year to year, with her head and hands always so full of pleasurable schemes and plans, that there really seemed to be no room for any thing else.  We have seen with what interest she co-operated with Grace in the various good works of the factory village in which her father held shares, where her activity found abundant scope, and her beauty and grace of manner made her a sort of idol.

Rose had once or twice in her life been awakened to self-consciousness, by applicants rapping at the front door of her heart; but she answered with such a kind, frank, earnest, “No, I thank you, sir,” as made friends of her lovers; and she entered at once into pleasant relations with them.  Her nature was so healthy, and free from all morbid suggestion; her yes and no so perfectly frank and positive, that there seemed no possibility of any tragedy caused by her.

Why did not John fall in love with Rose?  Why did not he, O most sapient senate of womanhood? why did not your brother fall in love with that nice girl you know of, who grew up with you all at his very elbow, and was, as everybody else could see, just the proper person for him?

Well, why didn’t he?  There is the doctrine of election.  “The election hath obtained it; and the rest were blinded.”  John was some six years older than Rose.  He had romped with her as a little girl, drawn her on his sled, picked up her hair-pins, and worn her tippet, when they had skated together as girl and boy.  They had made each other Christmas and New Year’s presents all their lives; and, to say the truth, loved each other honestly and truly:  nevertheless, John fell in love with Lillie, and married her.  Did you ever know a case like it?