don't think they do. Grandma thinks I'm better, and grandpa, and
I let them think so; but Miss Roxy, _can't_ you think of something
else?"

Miss Roxy laid aside the straw bonnet which she was ripping, and
motioned Mara into the outer room,--the sink-room, as the sisters called
it. It was the scullery of their little establishment,--the place where
all dish-washing and clothes-washing was generally performed,--but the
boards of the floor were white as snow, and the place had the odor of
neatness. The open door looked out pleasantly into the deep forest,
where the waters of the cove, now at high tide, could be seen glittering
through the trees. Soft moving spots of sunlight fell, checkering the
feathery ferns and small piney tribes of evergreen which ran in ruffling
wreaths of green through the dry, brown matting of fallen pine needles.
Birds were singing and calling to each other merrily from the green
shadows of the forest,--everything had a sylvan fullness and freshness
of life. There are moods of mind when the sight of the bloom and
freshness of nature affects us painfully, like the want of sympathy in a
dear friend. Mara had been all her days a child of the woods; her
delicate life had grown up in them like one of their own cool shaded
flowers; and there was not a moss, not a fern, not an upspringing thing
that waved a leaf or threw forth a flower-bell, that was not a
well-known friend to her; she had watched for years its haunts, known
the time of its coming and its going, studied its shy and veiled habits,
and interwoven with its life each year a portion of her own; and now she
looked out into the old mossy woods, with their wavering spots of sun
and shadow, with a yearning pain, as if she wanted help or sympathy to
come from their silent recesses.

She sat down on the clean, scoured door-sill, and took off her straw
hat. Her golden-brown hair was moist with the damps of fatigue, which
made it curl and wave in darker little rings about her forehead; her
eyes,--those longing, wistful eyes,--had a deeper pathos of sadness than
ever they had worn before; and her delicate lips trembled with some
strong suppressed emotion.

"Aunt Roxy," she said suddenly, "I _must_ speak to somebody. I can't go
on and keep up without telling some one, and it had better be you,
because you have skill and experience, and can help me if anybody can.
I've been going on for six months now, taking this and taking that, and
trying to get be