Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/320

312 Summer came I should be as strong and hearty as she could wish to see me; but inwardly her observation startled me. I knew my strength was declining, my appetite had failed, and I was grown listless and desponding;—and if indeed, he could never care for me, and I could never see him more—if I was forbidden to minister to his happiness, forbidden, for ever, to taste the joys of love, to bless and to be blessed, then, life must be a burden, and if my heavenly Father would call me away, I should be glad to rest; but it would not do to die and leave my mother—Selfish, unworthy daughter, to forget her for a moment! Was not her happiness committed in a great measure to my charge—and the welfare of our young pupils too? Should I shrink from the work that God had set before me, because it was not fitted to my taste? Did not He know best what I should do, and where I ought to labour? and should I long to quit His service before I had finished my task, and expect to enter into His rest without having laboured to earn it? "No; by his help I will arise and address myself dilgently to my appointed duty. If happiness in this world is not for me, I