This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 edition. Excerpt: ... XVIII. About this time I began to grow very rapidly--so rapidly, indeed, that it excited the notice of every one. I looked down on Gatty Henderson and Amy Robins, and made a very near approach to Ada. My mother said I had a most graceful figure, and Dr. Slaffen declared, I was the prettiest girl in all the country round. I am afraid I felt pleased when he said this; and I wished, --yes, I wished very much, --why need I blush to own it?--that if I really were so much improved, Lynn Forrester could see it. Then I remembered, with a feeling of disappointment, that it was the doctor's custom to express himself in honied words, and that his compliments were not always to be depended on. With my mother's praise, however, I could deal differently. I knew that love prompted her admiring words, and that if her estimate of me was too flattering, it was nevertheless sincere. I think the old understanding existed between us again, for, though seldom, she sometimes spoke of Lynn, and, when she did so, it was pleasantly and calmly, and she said I should live to thank her for the provision she had made for my happiness; and whilst she spoke, a feeling, which I cannot express, but which, I think, must have been related to hope, sprang up within me; and then I seemed to step out beyond the shadows of my heart. But this lighter mood only lasted whilst my mother was speaking: with the tones of her voice it died away, and my habitual gravity returned and rested on me, defying my happy home and merry companions to remove it. But a trial was in store for me, which was to bring me into a yet closer communion with sorrow, --a grief, in which, though my father and Edith joined, fell most heavily on me, leaving me to bear the secret at ray heart alone. My mother had