“I have made a promise,” said Mr. Atkins, “and I will keep it; and Abby, I trust, will keep hers.”
Abby flew round in high spirits to make the necessary preparations for her departure, and her mother assisted her with a heavy heart.
The evening before she left home, her father called her to him, and fixing upon her a calm, earnest, and almost mournful look, he said, “Abby, do you ever think?” Abby was subdued and almost awed by her father’s look and manner. There was something unusual in it—something in his expression which was unexpected in him, but which reminded her of her teacher’s look at the Sabbath school, when he was endeavouring to impress upon her mind some serious truth.
“Yes, father,” she at length replied, “I have thought a great deal lately about going to Lowell.”
“But I do not believe, my child, that you have had one serious reflection upon the subject, and I fear that I have done wrong in consenting to let you go from home. If I were too poor to maintain you here, and had no employment about which you could make yourself useful, I should feel no self-reproach, and would let you go, trusting that all might yet be well; but now I have done what I may at some future time severely repent of; and, Abby, if you do not wish to make me wretched, you will return to us a better, milder, and more thoughtful girl.”
That night Abby reflected more seriously than she had ever done in her life before. Her father’s words, rendered more impressive by the look and tone with which they were delivered, had sunk into her heart as words of his had never done before. She had been surprised at his ready acquiescence in her wishes, but it had now a new meaning. She felt that she was about to be abandoned to herself, because her parents despaired of being able to do anything for her; they thought her too wild, reckless, and untameable to be softened by aught but the stern lessons of experience. I will surprise them, said she to herself; I will show them that I have some
