After the indulgent American custom, she earnestly desired to please
_all_ of her children. In her own thoughts she existed only for them,
to minister to their happiness; even her husband was, unconsciously to
her, quite of secondary importance, his strongest present claim to
consideration lying in his paternity. Had it been possible, she would
have raised her tent, and planted her fig tree in the spot preferred by
each one of her children, but as that was out of the question, in the
mother's mind of course her sons came first. And this preference must
be indulged the more particularly that Warner--the elder of her two
boys, her idol and her grief--was slowly, well-nigh imperceptibly, but
none the less surely, drifting away from her. A boyish imprudence, a
cold, over-exertion, the old story which is so familiar, so hopeless,
so endless in its repetition and its pathos. When interests were
diverse, the healthy, blooming daughters could hope to make little
headway against the invalid son. _They_ had all the sunny hours of
many long years before them; he perhaps only the hurrying moments of
one.

For Warner a change was imperative--so imperative that even the
rebellious girls were fain to admit its necessity. His condition
required a gentler, kindlier atmosphere than that of New York. The
poor diseased lungs craved the elixir of pure air; panted for the
invigoration of breezes freshly oxygenized by field and forest, and
labored exhaustedly in the languid devitalized breath of a city. The
medical fraternity copiously consulted, recognized their impotence, but
refrained from stating it; and availed themselves of their power of
reference to the loftier physician--the boy must be healed, if he was
to be healed, by nature. The country, pure air, pure milk, tender
care; these were his only hope.