“Well, I’m glad to hear anybody speak well of you,” said Mrs. Brier to him again.  “I hope she’ll be able to make something of you.  Guess you’ll show the cloven foot, though, before long.”

The child, who had been regarding Clemence with a beaming, grateful glance, turned, as the woman concluded these remarks, with a sigh so deep and mournful that Clemence’s heart throbbed with sympathetic pain.

“We are none of us perfect,” she said, gently, “we can only try to do right, and ask God to bless our endeavors.  It requires a good deal of patience with little ones, and a firm and gentle hand to guide them.”

“I ain’t sure about the gentle, but I’m firm and determined enough.  I mean to be feared, if I ain’t loved.  I don’t care anything about such nonsense as winning a child’s affections.  He’s none of mine, and I’m glad of it.  He won’t expect to be pampered and spoiled like the other children around here.  And let me tell you, you had better profit by my example, in respect to that girl of Lynn’s.  It was a mighty foolish thing, burdening yourself down with the care of that child.  You’re poor, I take it, or you wouldn’t be teachin’ school here, and you say you’re an orphan.  What would become of you if you was to fall sick?”

“I should still trust in God,” said Clemence, “and I believe He would open a way for me.  I have only done what I thought to be my duty in the matter, and I have faith that I shall be fully sustained.”

“Oh, you know best of course, but people will have their say, and there has been a good deal of talk lately, and rather to your disadvantage.  ’Taint been looked upon in a favorable light here, taking a poor nobody’s child, and dressing her up to make her feel her importance over her betters.  I’m afraid you’ll yet be sorry that you ever undertook to provide for her.”

“God forbid,” said Clemence earnestly.  “I should despise myself for even once harboring such an unworthy thought.  Whatever the future may have in store for me, whether for weal or woe, this child shares it, for there is no one else to give a thought or prayer for my happiness.  This event, which my friends have looked upon as a calamity, has already proved a blessing, and has opened for me a new source of innocent pleasure.”

“Well, now you are visionary,” said her companion.  “Mrs. Wynn said so, and she gets things generally pretty near right.  Guess you’ll learn to be a little more practical before you get through with this life.  The world ain’t made for folks to dream away their time in, for there’s work to be done, and you know that them that don’t work shan’t eat.  Food and shelter and good, warm clothing, to say nothin’ of fine lady fixins, don’t come for a song, I can tell you.”

“I know it,” said Clemence, drearily, her thoughts going back to the great city, where she had lived and struggled for one who was no more.  “If I am given to dreams,” she mused, “they are not of a sanguine nature.  There are weary months of toil and discouragements, and many failures before me, for the ‘end is not yet.’  As another has remarked, ’a wide, rich heaven hangs above you, but it hangs very high.  A wide, rough world is around you, and it lies very low.’”