Miss Black asked no explanation of the affair; it was dropped, and
none of the girls alluded to it by hint or look afterward. When I told
Aunt Mercy of it, she turned pale, and said she knew what Charlotte
Alden meant, and that perhaps mother would tell me in good time.

"We had a good many troubles in our young days, Cassy."






CHAPTER X.


The atmosphere of my two lives was so different, that when I passed
into one, the other ceased to affect me. I forgot all that I suffered
and hated at Miss Black's, as soon as I crossed the threshold, and
entered grand'ther's house. The difference kept up a healthy mean;
either alone would perhaps have been more than I could then have
sustained. All that year my life was narrowed to that house, my
school, and the church. Father offered to take me to ride, when
he came to Barmouth, or carry me to Milford; but the motion of the
carriage, and the conveying power of the horse, created such a fearful
and realizing sense of escape, that I gave up riding with him. Aunt
Mercy seldom left home; my schoolmates did not invite me to visit
them; the seashore was too distant for me to ramble there; the
storehouses and wharves by the river-side offered no agreeable
saunterings; and the street, in Aunt Mercy's estimation, was not the
place for an idle promenade. My exercise, therefore, was confined