each day to her studies, reciting to a teacher who came regularly to
the house and whom she paid with her own money. By this means she
was at the age of seventeen a far better scholar than Nellie, who
left every care to her stepsister, saying she was just suited to the
kitchen work and the tiresome old books with which she kept her
chamber littered. This chamber to which Nellie referred was Maude's
particular province. Here she reigned joint sovereign with Louis,
who thus early evinced a degree of intellectuality wonderful in one
so young, and who in some things excelled even Maude herself.

Drawing and painting seemed to be his ruling taste, and as Dr.
Kennedy still cherished for his crippled boy a love almost
idolatrous, he spared neither money nor pains to procure for him
everything necessary for his favorite pursuit. Almost the entire day
did Louis pass in what he termed Maude's library, where, poring over
books or busy with his pencil, he whiled the hours away without a
sigh for the green fields and shadowy woods, through which he could
never hope to ramble. And Maude was very proud of her artist
brother--proud of the beautiful boy whose face seemed not to be of
earth, so calm, so angel-like was its expression. All the softer,
gentler virtues of the mother, and all the intellectual qualities of
the father were blended together in the child, who presented a
combination of goodness, talent, beauty, and deformity such as this
is seldom seen. For his sister Maude, Louis possessed a deep,
undying love which neither time nor misfortune could in any way
abate. She was part and portion of himself--his life--his light--his
all, in all--and to his childlike imagination a purer, nobler being
had never been created than his darling sister Maude. And well might
Louis Kennedy love the self-sacrificing girl who devoted herself so
wholly to him, and who well fulfilled her mother's charge, "Care for