Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/458

Rh each their favourite brother, of whom they cannot say enough in praise, and whose portraits they have shown me. Their parents are dead. They are here quite alone on the vessel. Sometimes they stand together on the piazza, and sing duets together very sweetly.

The eldest is the loveliest type of the young teacher of the New World, that young woman, who although delicate and slender in figure, and gifted with every feminine grace, stands more stedfastly upon her ground than the Alps or the pyramids of the earth; who understands Euclid and Algebra as well as any master of arts, and who understands better than they how to manage a school of unmanageable boys.

“I love to rule little boys,” said Miss G., with a smile, which had a good deal of conscious power mingled with its amiability. And with this power of goodness and beautiful womanliness, she goes calmly to assume her vocation of teacher; not merely however as the teacher, but with the feeling of being one of the young mothers of humanity.

And I do not know any image more beautiful. Such young women are the true heroines of romance of our day.

When I inquired whence that amiable young girl had derived both her strength and her gentle grace, her lofty view of the nobility of life, and the purpose of humanity, I was presented with a sweet and gravely beautiful image of her deceased mother.

“I remember,” said she, as we sate together one evening in the twilight, “I remember how she used to go out with me in the morning when I was a little girl, and wander over the green hills whilst the dew was yet on the grass; and how she would show me the little clover-flowers on the field-turf, which my foot trod, and let me see their perfect beauty, and taste how sweet they were with their honied juice!”

Bright tears shone in the beautiful eyes of the speaker.