whose sweet German voice rang out above the rest in the hymns, she might
kill her mother as quickly as by plunging a knife into her heart. The
steam-doctor, who was the family physician, had warned her and her
father separately of the danger of exciting Mrs. Anderson's most
excitable temper, and now Julia was the slave of her mother's disease.
That lucky hysteria, which the steam-doctor thought a fearful
heart-disease, had given Mrs. Abigail the whip-hand of husband and
daughter, and she was not slow to know her advantage, using her heart in
a most heartless way.

August could not blame Julia for not writing, for he had tried to break
the blockade by a letter sent through Jonas and Cynthy Ann, but the
latter had found herself so well watched that the note oppressed her
conscience and gave a hangdog look to her face for two weeks before she
got it out of her pocket, and then she put it under the pillow of
Julia's bed, and had reason to believe that the suspicious Mrs. Anderson
confiscated it within five minutes. For the severity of maternal
government was visibly increased thereafter, and Julia received many
reminders of her ingratitude and of her determination to kill her
self-sacrificing mother by her stubbornness.

"Well," Mrs. Anderson would say, "it's all one to me whether the world
comes to an end or not. I should like to live to see the day of
judgment. But I shan't. No affectionate mother can stand such treatment
as I receive from my own daughter. If Norman was only at home!"

It is proper to explain here that Norman was her son, in whom she took a
great deal of comfort when he was away, and whom she would have utterly
spoiled by indulgence if he had not been born past spoiling. He was the
only person to whom she was indulgent, and she was indulgent to him