when the boys fought for the privilege of dragging her sled up the hills, and
filling her tiny mitten with peppermints, down to the year when she came home
from the Wareham Female Seminary, an acknowledged belle and beauty. Suddenly
she had felt her popularity dwindling. There was no real change in the
demeanor of her acquaintances, but there was a certain subtle difference of
atmosphere. Everybody sympathized tacitly with Stephen, and she did not
wonder, for there were times when she secretly took his part against herself.
Only a few candid friends had referred to the rupture openly in conversation,
but these had been blunt in their disapproval.

It seemed part of her ill fortune that just at this time Rufus should be
threatened with partial blindness, and that Stephen's heart, already sore,
should be torn with new anxieties. She could hardly bear to see the doctor's
carriage drive by day after day, and hear night after night that Rufus was
unresigned, melancholy, half mad; while Stephen, as the doctor said, was
brother, mother, and father in one, as gentle as a woman, as firm as
Gibraltar.

These foes to her peace of mind all came from within; but without was the
hourly reproach of her grandmother, whose scorching tongue touched every
sensitive spot in the girl's nature and burned it like fire.

Finally a way of escape opened. Mrs. Wealthy Brooks, who had always been
rheumatic, grew suddenly worse. She had heard of a "magnetic" physician in
Boston, also of one who used electricity with wonderful effect, and she
announced her intention of taking both treatments impartially and alternately.
The neighbors were quite willing that Wealthy Ann Brooks should spend the
deceased Ezra's money in any way she pleased,--she had earned it, goodness
knows, by living with him for twenty-five years,--but before the day for her
departure arrived her right arm and knee became so much more painful that it