THE PADDOCK
old Hine—worn-out, and with so little work!—Elizabeth! I shall not like being old.
Elizabeth—It is natural you should think so. But age is as natural as youth, Janet, at the right time—yes, all the time! for it, too, is but just a stage in everything. Come, stay, go: begin, be, die: your restless youth, springing up, Hine’s drowsy age, dwindling down, and my contented housewifery halfway—what are they all, but just the common way of life? wide as the world, and narrow as this Paddock. See the clover blooming here, the strawberries ripening there, the old cabbage-tree over yonder very near its last season—and the Paddock with its arms about them all!
Janet—How unusual you are this morning, Liz! You’re not sick, are you? And how does all that make amends, pray, for being a poor old Hine, only able to fall asleep, on such a lively, lively day?
Elizabeth—This way, to my thinking. It seems to say that a poor old Hine, asleep in the sun, is as really all right, has just as truly a part in things, as a sprightly young Janet cantering about in it (Yes! I saw)—though Janet may not think so, and though the parts are different. Oh, child, you need not be afraid! Properly look’d at, age is no more pitiable, and not one whit less enviable than youth.
Janet—Elizabeth! When the one is Growing-up, and the other Growing-down?
Elizabeth—Yes! because, don’t you see, Janet, that Growing-down is after all only another way of Growing-on? You will grow on to womanhood, I to old-womanhood, Hine—to what? nobody knows! only, grow on to something she must—how can she help it? everything that is alive grows on, and everything is
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