Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/237

Rh many we meet with every day, and never think of them as heroines. I think she was about twenty, not handsome certainly. Large earnest gray eyes, clear and cool; glossy, abundant brown hair; a sensitive, passably pretty mouth, and over all a kind of shy, unstudied grace that attracts oftener than mere beauty. People who had known Janet from her earliest years, regarded her as a quiet reserved kind of a girl, perhaps a trifle odd, but on the whole uninteresting and with no claim to beauty. There were times however, when the thin, rather nervous face could glow with a fine, rare beauty, and the straight forward far-seeing eyes would be darkened and intensified, until one would be ready to aver that the blackness of night imprisoned in their depths had somehow caught a glimpse of the sunlight, and was struggling to be free. Great joy could effect this transformation, or sorrow that was acutest pain. But it was not often; for it was with Janet as with the most of her New England sisters. The "keen-edged atmosphere" and solid, enduring beauty surrounding them is unconsciously wrought into their characters, until they are cold and unimpassioned to all outward seeming.

A close observer might have frequently detected in the young girl's face a restless, unsatisfied expression, which made one feel as if life after all wasn't too happy for little Janet. And yet why shouldn't it be? Farmer Boyed was "well to do," was fond of his daughter of course; but he had been trained under the old Puritanical regime, and deemed all outward manifestations of affection or endearment, so many sure tokens of weakness and undue sinful love for the perishable things of earth. He had taken great care that this his one daughter should receive proper training both bodily and mentally; her educational advantages had been far superior to those of the average New England farmer's daughter. She ought to be happy. Still, notwithstanding his sense of paternal obligations fulfilled, the father was sometimes troubled as he noticed the wishful, far away look in Janet's tell-tale eyes. Her mother might have helped her, but she was a weak woman, and had so many troubles to bear, "and Janet is such a strange child," she would say. And so, with no companionship save that of a strong, untrained imagination, with no tender friend or loving, wise counselor to help her over the difficult, dangerous places, she drifted from girlhood into womanhood.

And hers was no isolated case. Many are the homes where the noise, and hurry, and worry of everyday life so loudly clamor, that stern, abstracted fathers, and weary, overworked mothers fail to catch the softer whisperings of rest, of quiet, and of peace; and in this chilling unhealthful atmosphere, light-hearted youth full of eager impetuosity, is either petrified into cold, hard, cynical maturity, or half sadly, half gladly, but too often sinfully turns away to bask in a golden sunshine that brings death with every radiant gleam.

Saturday to any but the most strictly methodical house-keeper, is the day of all days the fullest of work, of care and vexation. "Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work," says the old Mosaic law, which has been and ever will be held sacred and inviolable. But Oh, the multitude of little unfinished set-aside works of five days lo be crowded into the sixth, before can come the day of rest, who but the many busy house-wives in the many busy homes can tell?

And so Janet, young and vigorous though she was, felt inexpressibly glad when supper being ended, father's evening paper read, the half hour of patient toil with restless, impatient Harry, and sleepy stupid Tom over, the Sunday-school lesson of tomorrow having come to an end,—when all this was ended, when nine o'clock and prayer time came, when presently the house was still, the girl with a great feeling of relief stole up to her little room, and with the calm, happy moon-light resting upon her upturned face, she watched the stars