I half hoped that she meant to help me, but she sat down by the
window and said, with a sigh, how tired she was; and certainly her
eyes had a weary look.

She watched me for some time in silence, but once or twice she
sighed very heavily.

"I wish you could leave those things, Esther," she said, at last,
not pettishly--Carrie was never pettish--but a little too
plaintively. "I have not had a creature to whom I could talk since
you left home in April."

The implied compliment was very nice, but I did not half like
leaving my things--I was rather old-maidish in my ways, and never
liked half measures; but I remembered reading once about "the lust of
finishing," and what a test of unselfishness it was to put by a
half-completed task cheerfully at the call of another duty. Perhaps it
was my duty to leave my unpacking and listen to Carrie, but there was
one little point in her speech that did not please me.

"You could talk to mother," I objected; for mother always listened
to one so nicely.

"I tried it once, but mother did not understand," sighed Carrie. I
used to wish she did not sigh so much. "We had quite an argument, but
I saw it was no use--that I should never bring her to my way of
thinking. She was brought up so differently; girls were allowed so
little liberty then. My notions seemed to distress her. She said that
I was peculiar, and that I carried things too far, and that she