hope, which rarely dries up till long after three-and twenty, she
could have sat down and sighed, "My good days are done."

Rich people break their hearts much sooner than poor people; that is,
they more easily get into that morbid state which is glorified by the
term, "a broken heart." Poor people can not afford it. Their constant
labor "physics pain." Their few and narrow pleasures seldom pall.
Holy poverty! black as its dark side is, it has its bright side too,
that is, when it is honest, fearless, free from selfishness.
wastefulness, and bickerings; above all, free from the terror of
debt.

"We'll starve, we'll go into the work house rather than we'll go into
debt!" cried Hilary once, in a passion of tears, when she was in sore
want of a shawl, and Selina urged her to get it, and wait till she
could pay for it. "Yes; the work house! It would be less shame to be
honorably indebted to the laws of the land than to be meanly
indebted, under false pretences, to any individual in it".

And when, in payment for some accidental lessons, she got next month
enough money to buy a shawl, and a bonnet, too--nay, by great
ingenuity, another bonnet for Johanna--Hilary could have danced and
sang--sang, in the gladness and relief of her heart, the glorious
euthanasia of poverty.

But these things happened only occasionally; the daily life was hard
still; ay, very hard, even though at last came the letter from
"foreign parts;" and following it, at regular intervals, other
letters. They were full of facts rather than feelings--simple,
straightforward; worth little as literary compositions; school-master