t Barbara so greatly that the
good woman began at last seriously to inquire what was best to do.
Suddenly, like an inspiration, there came to her a thought of Clifton,
the famous water-cure in Western New York, where health, both of body
and soul, had been found by so many thousands. And Ethie caught eagerly
at the proposition, accepting it on one condition--she would not go
there as Mrs. Markham, where the name might be recognized. She had been
Miss Bigelow abroad, she would be Miss Bigelow again; and so Aunt
Barbara yielded, mentally asking pardon for the deception to which she
felt she was a party, and when, two weeks after, the clerk at Clifton
water-cure looked over his list to see what rooms were engaged, and to
whom, he found "Miss Adelaide Bigelow, of Massachusetts," put down for
No. 101, while "Governor Markham of Iowa," was down for No. 102.

CHAPTER XXXII

CLIFTON

They were very full at Clifton that summer, for the new building was not
completed, and every available point was taken, from narrow, contracted
No. 94 in the upper hall down to more spacious No. 8 on the lower floor,
where the dampness, and noise, and mold, and smell of coal and cooking,
and lower bathrooms were. "A very, very quiet place, with only a few
invalids too weak and languid, and too much absorbed in themselves and
their 'complaints' to note or care for their neighbors; a place where
one lives almost as much excluded from the world as if immured within
convent walls; a place where dress and fashion and distinction were
unknown, save as something existing afar off, where the turmoil and
excitement of life were going on." This was Ethelyn's idea of Clifton;
and when, at four o'clock, on a bright June afternoon, the heavily laden
train stopped before the little brown station, and "Clifton" was shouted
in her ears, she looked out with a bewildered kind of feeling upon the
crowd of gayly dressed people congregated upon the platform. Heads were
uncovered, and hair frizzled, and curled, and braided, and puffed, and
arranged in every conceivable shape, showing that even to that "quiet
town" the hairdresser's craft had penetrated. Expanded crinoline, with
light, fleecy robes, and ribbons, and laces, and flowers, was there
assembled, with bright, eager, healthful faces, and snowy hands wafting
kisses to some departed friend, and then turning to greet some new
arrival. There were no traces of sickness, no token of disease among the
smiling c