CHAPTER VI.

THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW.

The virtue of the world is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst of
the multitude which follows there is often something better than in the
one that goes before. Old generals wanted to take Toulon, but one of
their young colonels showed them how. The junior counsel has been known
not unfrequently to make a better argument than his senior fellow,--if,
indeed, he did not make both their arguments. Good ministers will tell
you they have parishioners who beat them in the practice of the virtues.
A great establishment, got up on commercial principles, like the
Apollinean Institute, might yet be well carried on, if it happened to get
good teachers. And when Master Langdon came to see its management, he
recognized that there must be fidelity and intelligence somewhere among
the instructors. It was only necessary to look for a moment at the fair,
open forehead, the still, tranquil eye of gentle, habitual authority, the
sweet gravity that lay upon the lips, to hear the clear answers to the
pupils' questions, to notice how every request had the force without the
form of a command, and the young man could not doubt that the good genius
of the school stood before him in the person of Helen barley.

It was the old story. A poor country-clergyman dies, and leaves a widow
and a daughter. In Old England the daughter would have eaten the bitter
bread of a governess in some rich family. In New England she must keep a
school. So, rising from one sphere to another, she at length finds
herself the prima donna in the department of instruction in Mr. Silas