These exciting events in the experience of our young friends had
come upon us so suddenly, that our minds were half bewildered. A few
weeks served, however, to bring all things into a right adjustment
with our own daily life and thought, and Ivy Cottage became one of
the places that grew dearer to us for the accumulating memories of
pleasant hours spent there with true-hearted ones who were living
for something more than the unreal things of this world.
How many times was the life that beat so feverishly in the Allen
House, and that which moved to such even pulsings in Ivy Cottage,
contrasted in my observation! Ten years of a marriage such as Delia
Floyd so unwisely consummated, had not served for the development of
her inner life to any right purpose. She had kept on in the wrong
way taken by her feet in the beginning, growing purse proud, vain,
ambitious of external pre-eminence, worldly-minded, and
self-indulgent. She had four children, who were given up almost
wholly to the care of hirelings. There was, consequent upon neglect,
ignorance, and bad regimen, a great deal of sickness among them, and
I was frequently called in to interpose my skill for their relief.
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