women in Boston, in like circumstances, would be equally bitter and
equally incapable of taking the broad views of an historian.

The influence of such a concentrated mind warped almost to the point of
monomania, upon a child like Mara, predisposed from birth to share in a
similar spirit, can be readily estimated. Peace and time, moreover, had
not brought the ameliorating tendencies of prosperity, but rather a
continuous and hopeless pressure of poverty.

Mrs. Hunter had been incapable of doing more than save what she could out
of the wreck of their fortunes. There were no near relations, and those
remaining, with most of their friends and acquaintances who had not been
alienated, were struggling like themselves in straitened circumstances.
Yet out of this poverty, many open, generous hands would have been
stretched to the widow and her ward had they permitted their want to be
known. But they felt that they would rather starve than do this, for they
belonged to that class which suffers in proud silence. Although they had
practiced an economy that was so severe as to be detrimental to both
health and character, their principal had melted away, and their jewelry
and plate, with the exception of heirlooms that could not be sold without
a sense of sacrilege, had been quietly disposed of. The end of their
resources was near, and they knew not what to do. Mara had tried to eke
out their means by fancy-work, but she had no great aptitude for such
tasks, and her education was too defective and old-fashioned for the
equipment of a modern teacher. She was well read, especially in the
classics, yet during the troubled years of her brief life she had not been
given the opportunity to acquire the solid, practical knowledge which
would enable her to instruct others. The exclusiveness and seclusion, so
congenial to her aunt, had been against her, and now reticence and a
disposition to shrink from the world had become a characteristic of her