But in the after silence on the shore,
When all is lost, except a little life,"

said one who had breasted the stormiest sea and plunged into the
fiercest strife. Ivy, who had never read Byron, and therefore could not
be suspected of any Byronical affectations, felt it, when, having gained
her point, she sat down alone in her own room. When her single self had
been pitted against superior numbers, age, experience, and parental
authority, all her heroism was roused, and she was adequate to the
emergency; but her end gained, the excitement gone, the sense of
disobedience alone remaining, and she was thoroughly uncomfortable, nay,
miserable.

"Mamma is right; I know I am a little goose," sobbed she. (The words
were mental, intangible, unspoken; the sobs physical, palpable,
decided.) "I never did know anything, and I never shall,--and I don't
care if I don't. I don't see any good in knowing so much. We don't have
a great while to stay in the world any way, and I don't see why we can't
be let alone and have a good time while we are here, and when we get to
heaven we can take a fresh start. Oh, dear! I never shall go to heaven,
if I am so bad and vex mamma. But then papa didn't care. But then he
would have liked me to go to school. But there, I won't! I won't! I
_will not!_ I'll study at home. Oh, dear! I wish papa was a great man,
and knew everything, and could teach me. Well, he is just as happy, and
just as rich, and everybody likes him just as well, as if he knew the
whole world full; and why can't I do so, too? Rebecca Dingham, indeed!
Mercy! I hope I never shall be like her; I would rather not know my A
B C! What _shall_ I do? There's Mr. Brownslow might teach me; he knows
enough. But, dear me! he is as busy as he can be, all day long; and
Squire Merrill goes out of town every day; and there's Dr. Mix, to be