mourning; when she left her room, it was to wear the deepest crepe,
while a half-inch of deadest black bordered the hundreds of responses
which she personally sent to notes of condolence. She never spoke
again of her husband without reference to her bereavement. Then, a
year later, when the mother herself suddenly went, it seemed to
devolve on the child to fulfil the mother's teachings. Her uncle's
attitude, moreover, toward his sister's death was in many ways
unhappy, for he did not repress expressions of bitterness toward the
surgeons and condemned the fate which had so early robbed Ethel of
both parents.

Thus, early and intensely, a morbid attitude toward death, a
conviction that self-pity was reasonable, normal, wholesome, a belief
that it was her duty to publicly display intensive evidences of her
affliction, determined a lasting and potent influence in this girl's
life which was to alloy her young womanhood--disturbing factors, all,
which before twelve caused much emotional disequilibrium. She now
lived with her uncle in New York City and her summers were spent in
Canada. The sense of fitness was so strong that during the next two
vitally important, developing years she avoided any physical
expression of her natural exuberance of spirits; and habits now formed
which were, for years, to deny her any right use of her muscular self.
She read much; she read well; she read intensely. She attended a
private school and long before her time was an accredited young lady.
Mentally, she matured very early, and with the exception of the
damaging influences which have been mentioned, she represented a
superior capacity for feeling and conceiving and accomplishing, even
as she possessed an equally keen capacity for suffering.

She was most winsome at sixteen, a bit frail and fragile, often spoken