She left her bed too soon, fearing to ask too much of the busy people who had done their best to be neighborly.  She returned to her work when it felt heavy in her feeble hands, for debt made idleness seem wicked to her conscientious mind.  And, worst of all, she fell back into the bitter, brooding mood which had become habitual to her since she lived alone.  While the tired hands slowly worked, the weary brain ached and burned with heavy thoughts, vain longings, and feverish fancies, till things about her sometimes seemed as strange and spectral as the phantoms that had haunted her half-delirious sleep.  Inexpressibly wretched were the dreary days, the restless nights, with only pain and labor for companions.  The world looked very dark to her, life seemed an utter failure, God a delusion, and the long, lonely years before her too hard to be endured.

It is not always want, insanity, or sin that drives women to desperate deaths; often it is a dreadful loneliness of heart, a hunger for home and friends, worse than starvation, a bitter sense of wrong in being denied the tender ties, the pleasant duties, the sweet rewards that can make the humblest life happy; a rebellious protest against God, who, when they cry for bread, seems to offer them a stone.  Some of these impatient souls throw life away, and learn too late how rich it might have been with a stronger faith, a more submissive spirit.  Others are kept, and slowly taught to stand and wait, till blest with a happiness the sweeter for the doubt that went before.

There came a time to Christie when the mist about her was so thick she would have stumbled and fallen had not the little candle, kept alight by her own hand, showed her how far “a good deed shines in a naughty world;” and when God seemed utterly forgetful of her He sent a friend to save and comfort her.

March winds were whistling among the house-tops, and the sky was darkening with a rainy twilight as Christie folded up her finished work, stretched her weary limbs, and made ready for her daily walk.  Even this was turned to profit, for then she took home her work, went in search of more, and did her own small marketing.  As late hours and unhealthy labor destroyed appetite, and unpaid debts made each mouthful difficult to swallow with Mrs. Flint’s hard eye upon her, she had undertaken to supply her own food, and so lessen the obligation that burdened her.  An unwise retrenchment, for, busied with the tasks that must be done, she too often neglected or deferred the meals to which no society lent interest, no appetite gave flavor; and when the fuel was withheld the fire began to die out spark by spark.

As she stood before the little mirror, smoothing the hair upon her forehead, she watched the face reflected there, wondering if it could be the same she used to see so full of youth and hope and energy.

“Yes, I’m growing old; my youth is nearly over, and at thirty I shall be a faded, dreary woman, like so many I see and pity.  It’s hard to come to this after trying so long to find my place, and do my duty.  I’m a failure after all, and might as well have stayed with Aunt Betsey or married Joe.”