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CHAPTER XIV.
RESCUED BY THE CRADLEBOW.
The ship in which the Cradlebow expected to take flight was to sail from
New Bedford on the twentieth of June. Meantime, having abjured my
friendly relations with Rebecca, and missing the quiet sustenance
hitherto supplied my vanity in the girl's thoughtful devotion, I found a
measure of relief for my wounded spirit in the companionship of this
other--my boyish and ardent ex-pupil.
Many times, after my last interview with Rebecca, had I regretted that I
did not leave Wallencamp at the close of the first term. The school grew
continually more irksome to me. I was not so strong as when I had first
undertaken it, and no longer overlooked the discomforts of my situation
in the delight I had then experienced in its novelty. Often I longed to
get away from it all, to rid myself abruptly of the perplexities and
distasteful duties which bound me; and yet, all the while, there was
a truer impulse, a deeper longing within me, to stay. Had I not been, all
my life so far, forsaking my unfinished tasks, quitting an object as soon
as it seemed any the less attractive. I willed to stay, and labored,
still blindly, under the conviction that my regenerating work among the
Wallencampers (not theirs in me; ah, no!) was not yet accomplished.
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