Lawson, and Hepsie, and Uncle Fliakim, and, in fact, all the Oldtown worthies,not even excepting Miss Mehitable and Polly, the minister and his lady, my grandmother, Aunt Lois, and Aunt Keziah. What harm was there in all this, when Tina assured us that aunty read the letters before they went, and laughed until she cried over them?
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"But, after all," I said to Harry one day, "it 's rather a steep thing for girls that have kept step with us in study up to this point, and had their minds braced just as ours have been, with all the drill of regular hours and regular lessons, to be suddenly let down, with nothing in particular to do."
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"Except to wait the coming man," said Harry, "who is to teach her what to do."
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"Well," said I, "in the interval, while this man is coming, what has Tina to do but to make a frolic of life?to live like a bobolink on a clover-head, to sparkle like a dewdrop in a thorn-bush, to whirl like a bubble on a stream? Why could n't she as well find the coming man while she is doing something as while she is doing nothing? Esther and you found each other while you were
working
side by side, your minds lively and braced, toiling at the same great ideas, knowing each other in the very noblest part of your natures; and you are true companions; it is a mating of
souls
and not merely of bodies."
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"I know that," said Harry, "I know, too, that in these very things that I set my heart on in the college course Esther is by far my superior. You know, Horace, that she was ahead of us in both Greek and mathematics; and why should she not go through the whole course with us as well as the first part? The fact is, a man never sees a subject thoroughly until he sees what a woman will think of it, for there is a woman's view of every subject, which has a different shade from a man's view, and that is what you and I have insensibly been absorbing in all our course hitherto. How splendidly Esther lighted up some of those passages of the Greek tragedy! and what a sparkle and glitter there were in some of Tina's suggestions! All I know, Horace, is that it is confoundedly dull being without them; these fellows are well enough, but they are cloddish and lumpish."
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"Well," said I, "that is n't the worst of it. When such a gay
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