p, so father
had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt
Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My
presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked
so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged
me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was
so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her
amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short
before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp,
and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque
costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged,
at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she
rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her
than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered,
especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the
sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played
on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song.
But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs
were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered
handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the
coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an
animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement
and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school,
and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I
never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the
slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the
durability of my own powers of life.

But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a
hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw
the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother
were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's
attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return
to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's
school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of
the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics.
Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she
began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she
caught my eye, and co