by every one, and physicked by herself, and sympathized with to her heart’s content by callers, and shut up in a hot room with the windows full of flowering plants, and somebody reading endless novels to her with the lights burning all night long—­if she wasn’t ill she had every inducement to be, and nothing but an indomitable constitution hindered it.  It was perfectly idle for us to tell her she was hurting herself; it only made her very indignant with us, and more determined than ever to persist in doing so.

Of course, then, the longer Aunt Pen staid in her own room the worse she really did get, and her nerves, with confinement and worry and relaxation, would by-and-by be in a condition for any sort of an outburst if we attempted the least reasoning with her.  She would become, for one thing, as sleepless as an owl; then she was thoroughly sure she was going to be insane, and down would go the hydrate of chloral till the doctor forbade it on pain of death.  After the chloral, too, such horrid eyes as she had! the eyes, you know, that chloral always leaves—­inflamed, purple, swollen, heavy, crying, and good for any thing but seeing.  Immediately then Aunt Pen went into a new tantrum; she was going to be stone-blind, and dependent on three heartless hussies for all her mercies in this life; but no, thank goodness! she had friends that would see she did not go absolutely to the wall, and would never suffer her to be imposed on by a parcel of girls who didn’t care whether she lived or died—­who perhaps would rather she did die—­who stood open-handed for her bequests; she would leave her money to the almshouse, and if we wanted it we could go and get it there!  And after that, to be sure, Aunt Pen would have a fit of remorse for her words, and confess her sin chokingly, and have us all come separately and forgive her, and would say she was the wretchedest woman on the face of the earth, that she should live undesired until her friends were all tired, and then die unlamented; and would burst into tears and cry herself into a tearing headache, and have ice on her head and a blister on the back of her neck, and be quite confident that now she was really going off with congestion of the brain.

After that, for a day or two, she would be in a heavenly frame of mind with the blister and cabbage leaves and simple cerate, and a couple of mirrors by which to examine the rise and fall of the blister; and, having had a hint of real illness, she would consent quite smilingly to the act of convalescence, and a descent to the healthy region of the parlors once more.

But no sooner were we all gay and happy in the house again, running out as we pleased, beginning to think of parties and drives and theatres and all enjoyment—­and rather unobservant, as young folks are apt to be unobservant of Aunt Pen’s slight habitual pensiveness in the absence of guests or excitement, and of her ways generally—­than Aunt Pen would challenge some lobster-salad to mortal combat, and, of course,