second-rate virtue. If we keep near a certain humble level of morality
and achievement, our neighbors are willing to let us slip through life
unchallenged. Those who anticipate the opinions and decisions of
society must expect to be found guilty of many sins.

There was not one of the young village people so well known as the
doctor's little girl, who drove with him day by day, and with whom he
kept such delightful and trustful companionship. If she had been asked
in later years what had decided her to study not only her profession,
but any profession, it would have been hard for her to answer anything
beside the truth that the belief in it had grown with herself. There
had been many reasons why it seemed unnecessary. There was every
prospect that she would be rich enough to place her beyond the
necessity of self-support. She could have found occupation in simply
keeping the doctor's house and being a cordial hostess in that home
and a welcome guest in other people's. She was already welcome
everywhere in Oldfields, but in spite of this, which would have seemed
to fill the hearts and lives of other girls, it seemed to her like a
fragment of her life and duty; and when she had ordered her
housekeeping and her social duties, there was a restless readiness for
a more absorbing duty and industry; and, as the years went by, all her
desire tended in one direction. The one thing she cared most to learn
increased its attraction continually, and though one might think the
purpose of her guardian had had its influence and moulded her
character by its persistence, the truth was that the wise doctor
simply followed as best he could the leadings of the young nature
itself, and so the girl grew naturally year by year, reaching out half
unconsciously for what belonged to her life and growth; being taught
one thing more than all, that her duty must be followed eagerly and
reverently in spite of the adverse reasons which tempted and sometimes