with health."

I had not spoken the last word before I became conscious of a streak
of pain which cut me like a knife and vanished; my surprise at it was
so evident that she asked me what ailed me."

"Nothing."

"I never had the feeling you speak of in my finger ends," she said
sadly, looking at her slender hand.

"Poor girl!"

"What has come over you, Cass? An attack of compassion? Are you
meaning to leave an amiable impression with me?"

After supper Mr. Shepherd asked mother if she would go to the theater.
The celebrated tragedian, Forrest, was playing; would the young ladies
like to see Hamlet? We all went, and my attention was divided between
Hamlet and two young men who lounged in the box door till Mr. Shepherd
looked them away. Veronica laughed at Hamlet, and Temperance said it
was stuff and nonsense. Veronica laughed at Ophelia, also, who was a
superb, black-haired woman, toying with an elegant Spanish fan, which
Hamlet in his energy broke. "It is not Shakespeare," she said.

"Has she read Shakespeare?" I asked mother.

"I am sure I do not know."

That night, after mother and Veronica were asleep, I persuaded
Temperance to get up, and bore my ears with a coarse needle, which I
had bought for the purpose. It hurt me so, when she pierced one, that
I could not summon resolution to have the other operated on; so I went
to bed with a bit of sewing silk in the hole she had made. But in the
morning I roused her, to tell her I thought I could bear to have the
other ear bored. When mother appeared I showed her my ears red and
sore, insisting that I must have a certain pair of white cornelian
ear-rings, set in chased gold, and three inches long, which I had seen
in a shop window. She scolded Temperance, and then gave me the money.

The next day mother and I started for Rosville. Veronica decided to
remain in Boston with Temperance till mother returned. She said
that if she went she might find Mrs. Morgeson as disagreeable as Mr.
Morgeson was; that she liked the Bromfield; besides, she wanted to see
the missionary children off for Bombay, and intended to go down to
the ship on the day they were to sail. She was also going to ask Mr.
Shepherd to look up a celebrated author for her. She must see one if
possible.

CHAPTER XIV.

It was sunset when we arrived in Rosville, and found Mr. Morgeson
waiting for us with his carriage at the station. From its open sides
I looked out on a tranquil, agreeable