"I am so glad!" said Bessie, placidly--"so glad, I mean, that we need not
go: I think every one must find his life-work at home."

I stared a little at this, because I knew that only a few months before
Bessie Haines had wanted very much to find style and fashion abroad; but I
remembered the Sunday-school, and tried to be as serious and convinced as
I could; and to that end I talked a good deal of church interests, and the
prophecies, and _Light in Obscurity_, a new work which had utterly
confused me at the first chapter, but which I had read through to Uncle
Pennyman one warm July day when he stayed at home to keep Tom's birth-day.

That reminds me: I have not mentioned Tom, but as he was away at college,
and Bessie never seemed to like to talk of him--I'm sure I can't see
why--it is quite natural that he slipped out of my memory.

He was a ward of Uncle Pennyman, who called him his son, and indeed had
adopted him formally.

How two such opposite people ever came to love each other as they did, I
never can explain. It was not a natural, commonplace affection: it was a
strong, deep, earnest love, as firm in the hearts of both as the life that
caused their throbbings.

Tom was wild and full of frolic: if there is a graver word than gravity,
it should be used to describe Uncle Pennyman's demeanor. Tom was quick and
restless by nature, but his good sense and determination to make a niche
for himself in life, and fill it respectably, had toned down his exuberant
spirits into active energy; while Uncle Penny man's naturally slow
tendencies had become aggravated by the ponderous character of his
pursuits and tastes: all hurry was obnoxious to him, and he firmly