One Saturday morning, knowing
that I had letters in the West Wallen Post Office, which I was anxious to
get before Sunday, she walked the whole distance alone to get them, and
sent them up to me by one of the school children, so that I should not
know who went after them. She was careful lest I should notice any change
in her. But I caught a reckless, mocking gleam in her eyes, at times,
that had never shone there when I knew her first. She associated more
with the "other girls," now. I heard her talking and laughing with them
in as loud and careless a tone as their own. She even whispered and
laughed in the evening meetings. And this, after all the earnest, serious
discourse I had had with her, the "refining," "elevating" influences I
had tried to throw around her, having first taken her so graciously under
my wing! She knew what belonged to agreeable manners, and the advantage
of paying a graceful obedience to the dictates of one's moral sense!
Something must be very innately wrong in Rebecca, I thought, something I
Had not hitherto suspected, else why should she fail in any degree under
so admirable a method!
"My dear," I said to her: "I am often tempted to do wrong--especially
because my life has been hitherto so vain and thoughtless--but, having
resolved to struggle with temptation, and to repel my own selfish
inclinations, I will not be content until I come off conqueror; I will
not fall out or loiter by the way; I have trials and perplexities, but I
will not submit to them, nor be driven from my purpose.
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