soreness to the surface of me.

Nobody knows better than I that I have not been a popular member of this
family. But nobody knows as well as I how hard I have tried to do my
conscientious best by the whole of them, collectively and individually
considered. An older sister, if she have any consciousness of
responsibility at all, is, to my mind, not in an easy position. Her
extra years give her an extra sense. One might call it a sixth sense of
family anxiety which the younger children cannot share. She has, in a
way, the intelligence and forethought of a mother without a mother's
authority or privilege.

When father had that typhoid and could not sleep--dear father! in his
normal condition he sleeps like a bag of corn-meal--who was there in all
the house to keep those boys quiet? Nobody but me. When they organized
a military company in our back yard directly under father's windows--two
drums, a fish-horn, a jews-harp, a fife, and three tin pans--was there
anybody but me to put a stop to it? It was on this occasion that the
pet name Moolymaria, afterward corrupted into Messymaria, and finally
evolved into Meddlymaria, became attached to me. To this day I do not
like to think how many cries I had over it. Then when Charles Edward
got into debt and nobody dared to tell father; and when Billy had the
measles and there wasn't a throat in the house to read to him four
hours a day except my unpopular throat; and when Charles Edward had that
quarrel over a girl with a squash-colored dress and cerise hair-ribbons;
or when Alice fell in love with an automobile, the chauffeur being
incidentally thrown in, and took to riding around the country with
him--who put a stop to it? Who was the only person in the family that
COULD put a stop to it?

Then again--but what's the use? My very temperament I can see now (I
didn't see it when I lived at home) is in itself an unpopular one in
a family like ours. I forecast, I foresee, I provide, I plan--it is my
"natur' to." I can't go sprawling through life. I must know where I am
to set my foot. Dear mother has no more sense of anxiety than a rice
pudding, and father is as cool as one of his own ice-pitchers. We all
know what Charles Edward is, and I didn't count grandmother and Aunt
Elizabeth.

There has been my blunder. I ought to have counted Aunt Elizabeth. I
ought to have fathomed her. It never occurred to me that she was deep
enough to drop a plummet in. I, the burden-bearer, the careta