seating herself by the lamp that stood on the deal-table. "It MUST
be a fine thing to be strong and tall, and able to look this way and
that without turning all your body along with your head, like the
old man that gathers the leeches in Wordsworth's poem. And what it
must be to sit on a horse as she does! You should have seen her go
flying like the very wind across the park! You would have thought
she and her horse were cut out of the same piece. I'm dreadfully
envious, uncle."

"No, my child; I know you better than you do yourself. There is a
great difference between _I_ WISH _I_ WAS and _I_ SHOULD LIKE TO
BE--as much as between a grumble and a prayer. To be content is not
to be satisfied. No one ought to be satisfied with the imperfect. It
is God's will that we should bear, and contentedly--because in
hope, looking for the redemption of the body. And we know he has a
ready servant who will one day set us free."

"Yes, uncle; I understand. You know I enjoy life: how could I help
it and you with me? But I don't think I ever go through the
churchyard without feeling a sort of triumph. 'There's for you!' I
say sometimes to the little crooked shadow that creeps along by my
side across the graves. 'You'll soon be caught and put inside!'--But
how am I to tell I mayn't be crooked in the next world as well as
this? That's what troubles me at times. There might be some
necessity for it, you know."

"Then will there be patience to bear it there also; that you may be
sure of. But I do not fear. It were more likely that those who have
not thanked God, but prided themselves that they were beautiful in
this world, should be crooked in the next. It would be like Dives