seemed to me that all my hopes, and wishes, and endeavors would always
be vain and fruitless; I could not see a bright side anywhere I
looked. I was always doing and saying the wrong things; I was in
everybody's way: no one wanted me, no one cared for me--why was I ever
born? I had no companions. My stepmother looked down upon the
dangerous habit of allowing children to cultivate juvenile friendships
indiscriminately, and I was not sufficient unto myself for
distractions that would keep me quietly out of the way. What good was
I? I was always ill-humored, vexing my step-mother and making baby
cry. It was plain to see that I was one too many in the world, and
whatever I did with myself I would be surely trespassing upon
somebody's privilege, outraging somebody's patience, and making myself
a nuisance generally. If there was a better place, thought I, I wonder
would I go there when all this discord of my present life had killed
me? Besides, old Hannah had told me that I had another mother in that
vague "better place." Every night at Hannah's knee I recited a little
prayer for her, and asked her to watch over me, to guard me from evil
and make me worthy of joining her some day in her happy home. If my
"other mother" was so sweet and kind and good, as Hannah told me in
confiding whispers she was, why did she not come to me when I was in
tears and tell me how to be good like her? She was too far away, I
supposed, up among the blue sunlit clouds, where all was bright and
cheerful: an angel-mother with beautiful white wings like the picture
in Hannah's prayer-book, and a sweet smiling face that always looked
down on me, watching my words and actions. And while I thought thus, I
saw many such white-winged angels floating noiselessly about in an
exquisite confusion, and distant strains of music, as Hannah said they
sang, filled my listening ears. I felt myself being lifted gently by
tender, unseen hands, and I wondered whether they would bear me far up
above spire and tower, away from all the worries of this desolate