Our dear mother, most faithful and indefatigable in her care for our
bodily wants, what time had she for aught else? With feeble health,
with poor servants, with a large house crowded with fine furniture,
and with the claims of a numerous calling and party-giving
acquaintance,--claims which both my father and herself imagined his
business and her social position made imperative,--what could she do
more than to see that our innumerable white skirts were properly
tucked, embroidered, washed, and starched, that our party dresses were
equal to those which Mrs. C. and Mrs. D. provided for their girls, and
that our bonnets were fashionable enough for Fourth Street? Could she
find time for anything more? Yes,--on our bodily ailments she always
found time to bestow motherly care, watchfulness, and sympathy; of our
mental ills she knew nothing.

So we cared for ourselves, Alice and I, through those merry,
thoughtless two years that followed,--merry (not happy) in our
Fourth-Street promenades, our Saturday-afternoon assignations at the
dancing-school rooms, our parties and picnics; and merry still, but
thoughtless always, in our eager search for excitement in the novels,
whose perusal was our only literary enjoyment.

Somehow we woke up,--somehow we groped our way out of our
frivolity. First came weariness, then impatience, and last a
passing-away of all things old and a putting-on of things new.

I remember well the day when Alice first spoke out her unrest. My
pretty Alice! I see her now, as she flung herself across the foot of
the bed, and, her chin on her hand, watched me combing and parting my
hair. I see again those soft, dark brown eyes, so deep in their liquid