approached ruggedness, her digestive "spells" were much less frequent,
and during the two years she spent away from home in the Convent, she
was quite well, and one year played center on the second basket ball
team. Two years away at school were all that the Judge could then
afford. And so at eighteen she was home for good. That fall she began
having headaches. She was reading much, so she went to Mobile and was
carefully fitted with glasses. The correction was not a strong one,
but the oculist felt it would relieve the "abnormal sensitiveness of
her eyes, which is probably causing her trouble."

Throughout her years of suffering, Ruth had always maintained the rare
restraint which marks fineness of soul. No one ever heard her
complain. Even her mother could not be sure that another attack was
on, until she found Ruth alone in her darkened room. Acquaintances,
even friends, never heard her mention her illness.

The midsummer months in Southern Alabama drive such as are able to the
relief of the mountains of Tennessee and the Carolinas. The Judge had
always felt that he should send his family away during July and
August; they often went in June when the summers were early. And these
weeks of change proved, year after year, the most helpful influences
that came to Ruth. She always improved and would usually remain
stronger until after Thanksgiving. But with irregular periodicity the
blinding, prostrating headaches would return--a week of pain, nausea
and prostration. Yet Ruth never asked for, nor took medicine, unless
it was ordered by the doctor, and then more in consideration of the
desires of her family, for the unnatural sensations, produced by most
of the remedies she was given, seemed but the substitution of one
discomfort for another. The only exercise that counted, which this
girl ever had, was during her weeks at Point View. The stimulation of