thoughtless hilarities of the Solemn Circle and fudge-feasts, and saw
him so altered, and, for him, so dangerously frail, in his invalid
chair, something went wrong with her breathing; the air could not get
into her lungs; there was a smothering in her throat and she toppled
over on the bed. It seemed to take smelling-salts and brandy to bring
her back. She said afterwards that she was not unconscious, that she
knew all that was happening, but felt a stifling sense of suffocation.
Later after one of her father's first unnatural outbreaks, she
suffered a series of chills and her mother thought, of course, it was
malaria; but many big doses of quinin did not break it up, and no
matter when the doctor came, his little thermometer revealed no fever.
She spent three months at Old Point Comfort and the chills were never
so bad again. Other distressing internal symptoms appeared closely
following the shock of her mother's sudden paralysis. An operation and
a month in a northern hospital were followed by comparative relief.
But her nervous symptoms finally became acute and she was spending the
spring and early summer on rest-cure in a sanitarium when her parents
died. The Jacksonville home was then closed.

Soon after, Clara was profoundly impressed at the same revival in
which her brother was converted. While she could not leave her church
to join this less formal denomination, she entered into Home
Missionary activities with much zest. At this time a friendship was
formed with a woman-physician who, as months of association passed,
attained a reasonably clear insight into her life and encouraged her
to enter a well-equipped, church training-school for deaconesses. The
spell of the religious influences of the past year's revival was still
strong; this, and the stimulation of new resolves, carried her along
well for six months. In her studies and practical work she showed
ability, efficiency and flashes of common sense. Then she became