questions about my little Ernest that I had to tell her the whole
story of his precious life, sickness and death. I forced myself to do
this quietly, and without any great demand on her sympathies. My
reward for the constraint I thus put upon myself was the abrupt
question:

"Haven't you grown stoical?"

I felt the angry blood rush' through my veins as it has not done in a
long time. My pride was wounded to the quick, and those cruel, unjust
words still rankle in my heart. This is not as it should be. I am
constantly praying that my pride may be humbled, and then when it is
attacked, I shrink from the pain the blow causes, and am angry with
the hand that inflicts it. It is just so with two or three unkind
things Martha has said to me. I can't help brooding over them and
feeling stung with their injustice, even while making the most
desperate struggle to rise above and forget them. It is well for our
fellow-creatures that God forgives and excuses them, when we fail to
do it, and I can easily fancy that poor Maria Kelly is at this moment
dearer in His sight than I am who have taken fire at a chance word
And I can see now, what I wonder I did not see at the time, that God
was dealing very kindly and wisely with me when He made Martha
overlook my good qualities, of which I suppose I have some, as
everybody else has, and call out all my bad ones, since the axe was
thus laid at the root of self-love. And it is plain that self-love
cannot die without a fearful struggle.

MAY 26, 1846.-How long it is since I have written in my journal! We
have had a winter full of cares, perplexities and sicknesses. Mother
began it by such a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism as I