CHAPTER XVI.
A TRIAL OF PATIENCE.
Two more years passed over Hetty's head. She had grown tall and looked
old for her age, her large gray eyes were full of serious thought, her
brow was grave, and the expression of her mouth touched with sadness.
The haughtiness and mirth of her childhood were alike gone. Earnest
desire to attain to a difficult end was the one force that moved her,
and this had become visible in her every word and glance. She was
painfully aware that the time was approaching when she must go forth to
battle with the world for herself, and that on her own qualifications
for fighting that battle her position in the world must depend. That she
had not sufficient aptitude for learning out of books, or for
remembering readily all that she gathered from them, she greatly feared.
Her memory gave her back in pictures whatever had engaged her
imagination; but much that was useful and necessary was wont to pass
away out of her grasp. Thorough determination, close application, did
not remove this difficulty, and she was warned by those around her that
unless she could make better use for study of the three years yet before
her than she had made of those that lay behind her, she could never be a
teacher of a very high order.
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