Her children could not have had better mother-stock, and the scant
days were in the past, so they never knew the lack of plenty. There
were eight, from Edith, born in 1870, to Frank, in 1885, including the
twins.

Did whiskey-drinking hurt?

Edith grew into a slender, retiring girl, her paleness accentuated by
her black hair. She was quiet, read much, and took little interest in
out-of-door activities, entering into the play-life of the other
children but rarely. Her father insisted, later, on her riding, and
she became a fair horsewoman. She was refined in all her relations.
Edith went to New Orleans at seventeen. The spring after, she
developed a hacking cough and had one or two slight hemorrhages, but
at twenty was better and married an excellent young merchant. The
child was born when she was twenty-two; three weeks later the mother
died, leaving a pitiable, scrofulous baby, which medical and nursing
skill kept lingering eighteen months.

The first boy was named James, Jr., as we should expect, and, as we
should not expect, was never called "Jim." But James was not right. He
developed slowly, did not walk till over three, was talking poorly at
five; he was subject to convulsions and destructive outbreaks; he was
uncertain and clumsy in his movements, so provision was made that he
might always have some one with him. But even in the face of this
care, he stumbled and fell into the laundry-pot with its boiling
family-wash, was badly scalded and seriously blinded. James mercifully
died two years later in one of his convulsions.

Mabel was the flower of the family. Through her girlhood she was