ng ever went right
with her; nothing ever suited her. If a thing was one way, that was the
especial reason why it ought to have been some other way.

She always wanted her own way; and when she had it--which she generally
did--it did not suit her any better. I am inclined to think that Captain
Fishley himself, at some remote period, long before I was born, had
been a more decent man than he was at the time of which I write. If he
ever had been, his degeneracy was easily explained; for it would not
have been possible for a human being, in daily contact with such a
shrewish spitfire as his wife, to exist untainted in the poison which
floated in the atmosphere around her.

This was the woman who inflicted herself upon the world, and upon me,
though I was by no means the greatest sufferer. If the mischief had
stopped here, I could have borne it, and the world could not have helped
itself. To me there was something infinitely worse and more intolerable
than my own trials--and they were the trials of my poor, dear, deformed,
invalid sister. Tender, loving, and patient as she was under them, her
sufferings made my blood boil with indignation. If Mrs. Fishley had
treated Flora kindly, she would have been an angel in my sight, however
much she snapped and snarled, and "drove me from pillar to post." The
shrew did not treat her kindly, and as the poor child was almost always
in the house, she was constantly exposed to the obliquities of her
temper.

My mother, for several years before her death, had been of feeble
constitution, and Flora had the "rickets" when she was a babe. She was
now twelve years old, but the effects of the disease still lingered in
her frame. Her limbs were weak, her breast-bone projected, and she was
so drawn up that she looked like a "humpback." But what she lacked in
body she more than made up in spirit, in the loveliness of an amiable
disposition, in an unselfish devotion to others, in a loving heart, and
a quick intelligence. She endured, without complaint, the ill nature of
Mrs. Fishley, endeavoring, by every means in her power, to make herself
useful in the house, and to lighten the load of cares which bore down so
heavily upon her hostess.

Mrs. Fishley called me, and I hastened to attend upon her will and
pleasure, in the back room. I knew very well that it would make no
difference whether I hurried or not; I should "have to take it" the
moment she saw me. If I was in the barn, I ought to have b