," I cried, striking the table with my hand, making Veronica
wink, "tell me how to feel and act."

"I have no influence with you, nor with Veronica."

"Because," said Verry, "we are all so different; but I like you,
mother, and all that you do."

"Different!" she exclaimed, "children talk to parents about a
difference between them."

"I never thought about it before." I said, "but _where_ is the family
likeness?"

Aunt Merce laughed.

"There's the Morgesons," I continued, "I hate 'em all."

"All?" she echoed; "you are like this new one."

"And Grand'ther Warren"--I continued.

"Your talk," interrupted Aunt Merce, jumping up and walking about, "is
enough to make him rise out of his grave."

"I believe," said Veronica, "that Grand'ther Warren nearly crushed
you and mother, when girls of our age. Did you know that you had any
wants then? or dare to dream anything beside that he laid down for
you?"

Aunt Merce and mother exchanged glances.

"Say, mother, what shall I do?" I asked again.

"Do," she answered in a mechanical voice; "read the Bible, and sew
more."

"Veronica's life is not misspent," she continued, and seeming to
forget that Verry was still there. "Why should she find work for her
hands when neither you nor I do?"

Veronica slipped out of the room; and I sat on the floor beside
mother. I loved her in an unsatisfactory way. What could we be to
each other? We kissed tenderly; I saw she was saddened by something
regarding me, which she could not explain, because she refused to
explain me naturally. I thought she wished me to believe she could
have no infirmity in common with me--no temptations, no errors--that
she must repress all the doubts and longings of her heart for
example's sake.

There was a weight upon me all that day, a dreary sense of
imperfection.

When father came home he asked me if I would like to go to Rosville.
I answered, "Yes." Mother must travel with me, for he could not leave
home. The sooner I went the better. He also thought Veronica should
go. She was called and consulted, and, provided Temperance would
accompany us to take care of her, she consented. It was all arranged
that evening. Temperance said we must wait a week at least, for her
corns to be cured, and the plum-colored silk made, which had been shut
up in a band-box for three years.

We started on our journey one bright morning in June, to go to Boston
in a stagecoach, a hundred miles from Surrey, and thence