was there too. Mamma asked if anything as natural as
near sightedness could be cured she said oh yes just as well as
other deseases.

When mamma came home, she took me into her room, and told me that
perhaps my near-sightedness could be cured by the "Mind Cure" and
that she was going to have me try the treatment any way, there
could be no harm in it, and there might be great good. If her plan
succeeds there certainly will be a great deal in "Mind Cure" to my
oppinion, for I am very near sighted and so is mamma, and I never
expected there could be any more cure for it than for blindness,
but now I dont know but what theres a cure for _that_.

It was a disappointment; her near-sightedness remained with her to the
end. She was born with it, no doubt; yet, strangely enough, she must
have been four years old, and possibly five, before we knew of its
existence. It is not easy to understand how that could have happened. I
discovered the defect by accident. I was half-way up the hall stairs one
day at home, and was leading her by the hand, when I glanced back
through the open door of the dining-room and saw what I thought she
would recognise as a pretty picture. It was "Stray Kit," the slender,
the graceful, the sociable, the beautiful, the incomparable, the cat of
cats, the tortoise-shell, curled up as round as a wheel and sound asleep
on the fire-red cover of the dining-table, with a brilliant stream of
sunlight falling across her. I exclaimed about it, but Susy said she
could see nothing there, neither cat nor table-cloth. The distance was
so slight--not more than twenty feet, perhaps--that if it had been any
other child I should not have credited the statement.

_From the Biography._

_March 14th, '86._--Clara sprained her ankle, a little while ago,
by running into a tree, when coasting, and while she was unable to
walk with it she played solotaire with cards a great deal. While
Clara was sick and papa saw her play solotaire so much, he got very
much interested in the game, and finally began to play it himself a
little, then Jean took it up, and at last _mamma_, even played it
ocasionally; Jean's and papa's love for it rapidly increased, and
now Jean brings the cards every night to the table and papa and
mamma help her play, and before dinner is at an end, papa has
gotten a separate pack of cards, and is playing alone