At eighteen we are not aware of this. Hope, when she smiles on us, and promises happiness tomorrow, is implicitly believed; Love, when he comes wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once admitted, welcomed, embraced. His quiver is not seen; if his arrows penetrate, their wound is like a thrill of new life. There are no fears of poison, none of the barb which no leech’s hand can extract. That perilous passion – an agony ever in some of its phases; with many, an agony throughout – is believed to be an unqualified good. In short, at eighteen the school of experience is to be entered, and her humbling, crushing, grinding, but yet purifying and invigorating lessons are yet to be learned.

Alas, Experience! No other mentor has so wasted and frozen a face as yours, none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy, none with hand so inexorable draws the novice so sternly to his task, and forces him with authority so resistless to its acquirement. It is by your instructions alone that man or woman can ever find a safe track through life’s wilds; without it, how they stumble, how they stray! On what forbidden grounds do they intrude, down what dread declivities are they hurled!

Caroline, having been convoyed home by Robert, had no wish to pass what remained of the evening with her uncle. The room in which he sat was very sacred ground to her; she seldom intruded on it; and tonight she kept aloof till the bell rang for prayers. Part of the evening church service was the form of worship observed in Mr. Helstone’s household. He read it in his usual nasal voice, clear, loud, and monotonous. The rite over, his niece, according to her wont, stepped up to him.

“Good night, uncle.”

“Hey! You’ve been gadding abroad all day – visiting, dining out, and what not!”

“Only at the cottage.”

“And have you learned your lessons?”

“Yes.”

“And made a shirt?”

“Only part of one.”

“Well, that will do. Stick to the needle, learn shirt-making and gown-making and piecrust-making, and you’ll be a clever woman someday. Go to bed now. I’m busy with a pamphlet here.”

Presently the niece was enclosed in her small bedroom, the door bolted, her white dressing gown assumed, her long hair loosened and falling thick, soft, and wavy to her waist; and as, resting from the task of combing it out, she leaned her check on her hand and fixed her eyes on the carpet, before her rose, and close around her drew, the visions we see at eighteen years.

Her thoughts were speaking with her, speaking pleasantly, as it seemed, for she smiled as she listened. She looked pretty meditating thus; but a brighter thing than she was in that apartment – the spirit of youthful Hope. According to this flattering prophet, she was to know disappointment, to feel chill no more; she had entered on the dawn of a summer day – no false dawn, but the true spring of morning – and her sun would quickly rise. Impossible for her now to suspect that she was the sport of delusion; her expectations seemed warranted, the foundation on which they rested appeared solid.

“When people love, the next step is they marry,” was her argument. “Now, I love Robert, and I feel sure that Robert loves me. I have thought so many a time before; today I felt it. When I looked up at him after repeating Chénier’s poem, his eyes (what handsome eyes he has!) sent the truth through my heart. Sometimes I am afraid to speak to him, lest I should be too frank, lest I should seem forward – for I have more than once regretted bitterly overflowing, superfluous words, and feared I had said more than he expected me to say, and that he would disapprove what he might deem my indiscretion; now, tonight I could have ventured to express any thought, he was so indulgent. How kind he was as we walked up the lane! He does not flatter or say foolish things; his love-making (friendship, I mean; of course I don’t yet account him my lover, but I hope he will be so some day) is not like what we read of in books, – it is far better – original, quiet, manly, sincere. I do like him; I would be an excellent wife to him if he did marry me; I would tell him of his faults (for he has a few faults), but I would study his comfort, and cherish him, and do my best to make him happy. Now, I am sure he will not be cold tomorrow. I feel almost certain that tomorrow evening he will either come here, or ask me to go there.”