Seaboard Parish, vol 1 | Page 6

look at it in that light. Not that I have anything to complain of."
"But I don't want to stop at home and lead an easy, comfortable life, when there are so many to help everywhere in the world."
"Is there anything better in doing something where God has not placed you, than in doing it where he has placed you?"
"No, papa. But my sisters are quite enough for all you have for us to do at home. Is nobody ever to go away to find the work meant for her? You won't think, dear papa, that I want to get away from home, will you?"
"No, my dear. I believe that you are really thinking about duty. And now comes the moment for considering the passage to which you began by referring:--What God may hereafter require of you, you must not give yourself the least trouble about. Everything he gives you to do, you must do as well as ever you can, and that is the best possible preparation for what he may want you to do next. If people would but do what they have to do, they would always find themselves ready for what came next. And I do not believe that those who follow this rule are ever left floundering on the sea-deserted sands of inaction, unable to find water enough to swim in."
"Thank you, dear papa. That's a little sermon all to myself, and I think I shall understand it even when I think about it afterwards. Now let's have a trot."
"There is one thing more I ought to speak about though, Connie. It is not your moral nature alone you ought to cultivate. You ought to make yourself as worth God's making as you possibly can. Now I am a little doubtful whether you keep up your studies at all."
She shrugged her pretty shoulders playfully, looking up in my face again.
"I don't like dry things, papa."
"Nobody does."
"Nobody!" she exclaimed. "How do the grammars and history-books come to be written then?"
In talking to me, somehow, the child always put on a more childish tone than when she talked to anyone else. I am certain there was no affection in it, though. Indeed, how could she be affected with her fault-finding old father?
"No. Those books are exceedingly interesting to the people that make them. Dry things are just things that you do not know enough about to care for them. And all you learn at school is next to nothing to what you have to learn."
"What must I do then?" she asked with a sigh. "Must I go all over my French Grammar again? O dear! I do hate it so!"
"If you will tell me something you like, Connie, instead of something you don't like, I may be able to give you advice. Is there nothing you are fond of?" I continued, finding that she remained silent.
"I don't know anything in particular--that is, I don't know anything in the way of school-work that I really liked. I don't mean that I didn't try to do what I had to do, for I did. There was just one thing I liked--the poetry we had to learn once a week. But I suppose gentlemen count that silly--don't they?"
"On the contrary, my dear, I would make that liking of yours the foundation of all your work. Besides, I think poetry the grandest thing God has given us--though perhaps you and I might not quite agree about what poetry was poetry enough to be counted an especial gift of God. Now, what poetry do you like best?"
"Mrs. Hemans's, I think, papa."
"Well, very well, to begin with. 'There is,' as Mr. Carlyle said to a friend of mine--'There is a thin vein of true poetry in Mrs. Hemans.' But it is time you had done with thin things, however good they may be. Most people never get beyond spoon-meat--in this world, at least, and they expect nothing else in the world to come. I must take you in hand myself, and see what I can do for you. It is wretched to see capable enough creatures, all for want of a little guidance, bursting with admiration of what owes its principal charm to novelty of form, gained at the cost of expression and sense. Not that that applies to Mrs. Hemans. She is simple enough, only diluted to a degree. But I hold that whatever mental food you take should be just a little too strong for you. That implies trouble, necessitates growth, and involves delight."
"I sha'n't mind how difficult it is if you help me, papa. But it is anything but satisfactory to go groping on without knowing what you are about."
I ought to have mentioned that Constance had been at school for two years, and had only been home a month that