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Prentiss, E. (Elizabeth), 1818-1878

"Stepping Heavenward"

"
"It is plain, then," said Helen, "that you and Ernest are sure of one
source of happiness as long as you live, whatever vicissitudes you
may meet with. I thank you so much for what you have said. The fact
is you have been brought up to carry religion into everything. But I
was not. ~ My mother was as good as she was lovely, but I think she
felt and taught us to feel, that we were to put it on as we did our
Sunday clothes, and to wear it, as we did them, carefully and
reverently, but with pretty long, grave faces. But you mix everything
up so, that when I am with you I never know whether you are most like
or most unlike other people. And your mother is just so."
"But you forget that it is to Ernest I owe my best ideas about
married life; I don't remember ever talking with my mother or any one
else on the subject. And as to carrying religion into everything, how
can one help it if one's religion is a vital part of one's self, not
a cloak put on to go to church in and hang up out of the way against
next Sunday?"
Helen laughed. She has the merriest, yet gentlest little laugh one
can imagine. I long to know who it is that has been so fortunate as
to touch her heart!
MARCH.-I know now, and glad I am! The sly little puss is purring at
this moment in James' arms; at least I suppose she is, as I have
discreetly come up to my room and left them to themselves So it seems
I have had all these worries about Lucy for naught.


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