You need not hesitate to say so; it
is quite my own opinion. We have amounted to very little, taken
altogether."
"Oh, no!" said Ida, quietly; "I do not think that; I would not say that;
but your lives have all been so different from what I have always dreamed
my life as a woman would be."
"You have a right to be disappointed in us," said Miss Ludington. "We
have, indeed, not turned out as you expected--as you had a right to
expect." But Ida would not admit in any derogatory sense that she was
disappointed.
"You are sweeter, and kinder, and gentler, than I supposed I ever could
be," she said; "but you see, I thought, of course, I should be married,
and have children, and that all would be so different from what it has
been; but not that I should ever be better than you are, or nearly so
sweet. Oh, no!"
"Thank you, my darling!" said the old lady, kissing Ida's hand, as if she
were a queen who had conferred an order of merit upon her. "I think that
to have to confess to their youthful selves their failures to fulfil
their expectations must be the hardest part of the Day of Judgment for
old folks who have wasted their lives.
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