of giving offence that I may know in what direction to
look for those restorative influences which the sympathy of a friend and
sister can offer to a brother in need of some kindly impulse to change
the course of a life which is not, which cannot be, in accordance with
his true nature.

I have thought that there may be something in the conditions with which
you are here surrounded which is repugnant to your feelings,--something
which can be avoided only by keeping yourself apart from the people
whose acquaintance you would naturally have formed. There can hardly be
anything in the place itself, or you would not have voluntarily sought
it as a residence, even for a single season there might be individuals
here whom you would not care to meet, there must be such, but you cannot
have a personal aversion to everybody. I have heard of cases in which
certain sights and sounds, which have no particular significance for
most persons, produced feelings of distress or aversion that made,
them unbearable to the subjects of the constitutional dislike. It has
occurred to me that possibly you might have some such natural aversion
to the sounds of the street, or such as are heard in most houses,
especially where a piano is kept, as it is in fact in almost all of
those in the village. Or it might be, I imagined, that some color in
the dresses of women or the furniture of our rooms affected you
unpleasantly. I know that instances of such antipathy have been
recorded, and they would account for the seclusion of those who are
subject to it.

If there is any removable condition which interferes with your free
entrance into and enjoyment of the social life around you, tell me, I
beg of you, tell me what it is, and it shall be eliminated. Think it not
strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself into
the hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to be
frightened from the carrying out of any thought which promises to be
of use to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered
"unfeminine." I can bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannot
endure to think of myself as inhuman. Can I help you, my brother'?

Believe me your most sincere well-wisher, LURIDA VINCENT.

Euthymia had carried off this letter and read it by herself. As she
finished it, her feelings found expression in an old phrase of her
grandmother's, which came up of itself, as such survivals of early days
are apt to do, on great occas