upon by some inscrutable disease, were weeks of darkness and solitude.
Temperance and Aunt Merce took as much care of her as she would allow;
but she preferred being alone most of the time. Thus she acquired
the fortitude of an Indian; pain could extort no groan from her.
It reacted on her temper, though, for after an attack she was
exasperating. Her invention was put to the rack to tease and offend.
I kept out of her way; if by chance she caught sight of me, she forced
me to hear the bitter truth of myself. Sometimes she examined me to
learn if I had improved by the means which father so _generously_
provided for me. "Is he not yet tired of his task?" she asked once.
And, "Do you carry everything before you, with your wide eyebrows and
sharp teeth? Temperance, where's the Buffon Dr. Snell sent me? I want
to classify Cass."

"I'll warrant you'll find her a sheep," Temperance replied.

"Sheep are innocent," said Veronica. "You may go," nodding to me, over
the book, and Temperance also made energetic signs to me to go, and
not bother the poor girl.

Always regarding her from the point of view she presented, I felt
little love for her; her peculiarities offended me as they did mother.
We did not perceive the process, but Verry was educated by sickness;
her mind fed and grew on pain, and at last mastered it. The darkness
in her nature broke; by slow degrees she gained health, though never
much strength. Upon each recovery a change was visible; a spiritual
dawn had risen in her soul; moral activity blending with her ideality
made her life beautiful, even in the humblest sense. Veronica! you
were endowed with genius; but while its rays penetrated you, we did
not see them. How could we profit by what you saw and heard, when we