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(My cool update widgets aren't showing for me. I think I'll keep a total word count in each of my title posts.)

Amelia isn’t sure how things have seemed to go so, so off from her dream. She was head to a port, but row however she might, the current has caused her to slowly drift aside. The first year ws much as she expected. Things were an adjustment, to be sure, but it was an adjustment that she was making. And while some of her students did make incredible progress, many made only moderate progress, and there were a few she just couln’d seem to reach no matter how hard she tried. It was almost as if they had decided that they did not want to be reached. Amelia had to face the fact that she could either cry, become frustrated, become bitter, or give up on those students. Or at least, that was the only options she could find mid-winter of her first year. By her second year, the year she thought things would begin to really pick up for her, she found that the small annoyances were even more frustrating. As she strove for greatness, she had little patience for medicracy and the mundane of the everyday was not want she wanted to triffle her time on. Her attempts to impress the superintendent were rewarded with a distracted pat on the head. Her suggestions for improvement were meant with patronizing lectures of how she needed to trust the judgement of those in a better place than she to make these decisions. Feeling like the system had turned her back on her, she was tempted to turn her back on the system, and she did, in a sense. Without board approval, she made subtle changes in her lessons and her teaching strategies. And so began several weeks of passive rebellion. Some of the changes, she still felt, would have made a difference, but they were carried off in a spirit of bitterness and secrecy, and somehow left her even more stressed. Neither did they have the benefit she thought they should for her students.

By the spring of her second year, Amelia was seriously considering whether she had made a mistake coming to Lancaster. Not that she was ready to throw in the towel, not by a long shot. But it was not becoming evident that Lancaster was not the position by which she would prosper on a personal level. More and more, Amelia, who had always prided herself on her independence, keenly felt the need for a listening sympathetic ear. She began to realize that as much as she thought she was independent, she had needed her Mammaw to be her emotional support, she had needed her Grandmere to be her financial support through college, she had needed her instructors to give her guidance and encouragement. The dark voice of doubt began to whisper that perhaps it was not Lancaster that was the problem. Perhaps the problem was Amelia. Perhaps she was only just realizing that she was far less capable than she thought herself to be. Now that she had a chance to try her wings, perhaps she was learning that she couldn’t fly after all, and that she should be content to hop along the ground.

That second spring, she thought she had found the answer. In her heart of hearts, she believes it is the answer. It must be. And surely that next summer and the following school year had been the most satisfying, most fulfilling period of her life. So now her perpetual question was not, what was she doing wrong, but, how had she lost the joy of her salvation? It had slipped through her fingers like the finest of sand, and the tighter she made her fist, the quicker it was squeezed away.
By force of will, she turns her thoughts away from her own self-reflection, and begins to pray. Letting her eyes drift around the room, she prays briefly for each of the girls confined to their rooms before she prays for each of the eighteen girls present in turn. The parlor where they gathered was modestly furnished. Its pieces were functional and practical and somehow fell short of being inviting. A few samplers adorned the walls and fewer doilies graced the tables and shelves, but these items were dearer than any ornate décor could ever be, for they had been handstiched, knitted, and crocheted by the girls of the cottage and were displayed with pride. The girls themselves were even more simply dressed than the room, for all that they wore the best of their two dresses. The sameness of the plain brown wool of their dresses made Amelia’s navy blue look positively vibrant. And while Amelia’s cuffs and collar was trimmed with a narrow, pleated white ruffle, no such adornment was afforded the girls. Being a Sunday, they did not even have their white aprons to brighten their attire. Oblivious to Amelia’s gaze, they clustered together, heads bent towards each other as they whispered. Several clutched their slates in a hand, careful to keep its written face down, hidden from the eyes of friends. One group was gathered around a journal spread open upon the coffee table and speculations and disagreements flew in quiet hushes around its members. One girl chewed her lip as she huddled alone over the pages of a Bible, the slate beside her empty.

Rising at last from her chilly seat, Amelia puts a finger to her lips at the glances she drew from around the room. By that signal, the girls turned back to their conversations, yet the already subdued voices became even quieter. Amelia lightly touches one crouched shoulder as she leans in to her frustrated pupil. “How is it going, Betsy?” she asks just as quietly as the other girls are whispering.
“Miss Hall,” answers the upturned, slightly freckled face, “I can’t find anything that I like.”

Amelia’s smile touches only the corners of her mouth. Betsy is by far the most sensitive of the cottage girls. Amelia had spent the better part of the fall drawing Betsy out of the protective shell she had been so deeply nestled in. Then had followed a month of silent tears when all the hurts of life seemed to leak continuously from the young one’s eyes. Finally Betsy seemed ready to participate in their weekly activity, which all the