n'
natural ever did her any hurt. When she was a little child flittin' about
like a wild creature, and she'd come in drenched to the skin, it was all
I could do to catch her and change her clothes. She'd laugh at me. 'We're
meant to be wet once in a while, Phrasie,' she'd say; 'that's what the
rain's for, to wet us. It washes some of the wickedness out of us.' It
was the unnatural things that hurt her--the unkind words and makin' her
act against her nature. 'Phrasie,' she said once, 'I can't pray in the
meeting-house with my eyes shut--I can't, I can't. I seem to know what
they're all wishing for when they pray,--for more riches, and more
comfort, and more security, and more importance. And God is such a long
way off. I can't feel Him, and the pew hurts my back.' She used to read
me some, out of a book of poetry, and one verse I got by heart--I guess
her prayers were like that."

"Do you--remember the verse?" asked Victoria.

Euphrasia went to a little shelf in the corner of the kitchen and
produced a book, which, she opened and handed to Victoria.

"There's the verse!" she said; "read it aloud. I guess you're better at
that than I am."

And Victoria read:--

"Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest."

Victoria let fall the volume on her lap.

"There's another verse in that book she liked," said Euphrasia, "but it
always was sad to me."

Victoria took the book, and read again:--

"Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?"

Euphrasia laid the volume tenderly on the shelf, and turned and faced
Victoria.

"She was unhappy like that before she died," she exclaimed, and added,
with a fling of her head towards the front of the house, "he killed her."

"Oh, no!" cried Victoria, involuntarily rising to her feet. "Oh, no! I'm
sure he didn't mean to. He didn't understand her!"

"He killed her," Euphrasia repeated. "Why didn't he understand her? She
was just as simple as a child, and just as trusting, and just as loving.
He made her unhappy, and now he's driven her son out of her house, and
made him unhappy. He's all of her I have left, and I won't see him
unhappy."

Victoria summoned her courage.

"Don't you think," she asked bravely, "that Mr. Austen Vane ought to be
t