Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1882-07-06
THEODORA.
GIFT OF GOD.

4 do WISH said Mrs. Prudence Hall,
holding her darning needle in INDIAN
for moment over the coarse blue sock
she was mending, Il do wish you could
see your way clear to marrying Seth
Hallett. de wants yoa the worst
kind, and he'd be such good provid-
err
But l don't like him well enough,
Prudy; and l want something besides
meat and drink, and two calico dresses
year.
Mrs. Prudence Hall had sprained her
ankle, and was forced, sorely against
her will, to sit day after day in an up
per chamber, with a terrible conscious
ness that everything about the farm
was relapsing into chaos for. want of
oversight. Her pretty sister Dora had
come to stay with her; but she was ON
ly child, you know
There are two kinds of love in this
world said Mrs. Hall, after pause,
in which she had been taking counsel
with herself whether Dora was old
enough to be talked to on such matters
at all, and it flashed upon her that
the child was nearly twenty years old.
Perhaps you like Seth well enough to
marry him, only you don't know it.
Tell me about the two kinds of love,
said Dora innocently. Il thought love
was love the world ever
Il have never known but one kind, /
think. Dora. When l married David
Hall, he was the most well-to-do young
man in these parts, and we never had
a quarrel. He was good, practical
sort of man, and he never asked me
to do anything unreasonable
What if he had?' asked Dora.
We'll, 1 guess 1 should have argued
him out of it. But there is kind OF
love that will draw women through
fire and water. 1t makes them throw
themselves away on poor, shiftless men
that will never provide for them mol
their children, and they know it as well
as anybody else does. 1t is the greatest
wonder to me why such a useless feel
ing should ever have been created
Dora had bent low over her work tt
hide her roughish smile at her sister:
discourse but at this point she FIXED
her deep gray eyes on Prudence, not
smiling, but simply earnest.
Such love brings happiness, some
times said Dora.
Next to never 7 said Prudence, will
great decision. we amt made to b,
too happy, and anything that's too goot
always leaves bad taste in the mouth
Comfort is a bird in the hand, and you
don't gain anything by letting it fly OF
the chance of happiness
Did you know any one about here
Prudence, that threw herself away fol
love? 1t seems to me they wont look a
a man unless he has house and farm
ready for them
That's where they're right, sale
Prudence. you are rather given K
high-hying notions, and it's time YOU
found out that bread don't grow al
ready buttered. Yes. / did know on,
girl who was pretty and smart, and hat
no end of chances to get married, c
think my David courted her a spell, bu
he never would own it, and she woulC
have that shiftless critter, Joe Raymond
who never could make one hand wasl
the other. Even when she was a-dyin
che pretended that she had been happy
and wouldn't have done no other wa,
If she had it to do over again
was she Joe's motherT asked Dora
quickly,
Yes, to be sure and when she die,
we took him to bring up and work OF
the farm. He's more than paid his way
but he's rolling stone like his father
and won't never come to anything,
forgot to tell you-he's going away tC
morrow
Going tomorrow cried Dora wit
great start. Thought his time WASH
out for month";
We'll, it amt rightly out till he
twenty-one, but he was in such hurr
to be off that gave him the last month
Then q silence fell upon both.