“Your clothes are a great deal too tight, Amanda.”

“Oh no, I am not tight at all, ma.  Julia Mason laces as tight again.  She gets her sister to draw her lacings for her, and she has to pull with all her strength.”

“That is wrong in Julia Mason, and yet half the pressure that she can bear would seriously injure you.”

“How can that be, ma?  I am as healthy as she is.”

“I will tell you, Amanda.  She has a full round chest, giving free play to the lungs; while your chest is narrow and flat.  Without any compression, the action of your lungs is not so free and healthy as hers would be, laced as tightly as you say she laces.  But when to your natural conformation you add artificial pressure, the action of your lungs becomes not only enfeebled, but the unhealthy action induced tends to develop that peculiar form of disease, the predisposition to which you inherit.”

“That is only an idea of yours, ma.  I am sure I have quite a full bust,” said Amanda, glancing down at her chest, and embracing it with her hands.

“There you are mistaken.  I have noticed this defect, with much anxiety, ever since you were a child; and having had my attention called to it, have frequently made comparisons, and have found that you are remarkably narrow and flat, and what is more, have a tendency to stoop, which still lessens the size of the cavity in which the lungs play.”

“Well, ma, my clothes are not tight.  Just see here.”

Mrs. Beaufort tried her clothes, and found them to be much tighter than in her judgment was good for health.

“You are still unwilling, Amanda, to be governed by your mother, where her wishes come in opposition to your pride or inclinations.  I know that you are compressing your chest too much, but you are not willing to yield to my judgment.  And yet I prescribe no arbitrary rules, but endeavor to guide you by a rational consideration of true principles.  These you will not see; and the consequences that must follow their violation will be the transgressor’s reward.”

“Indeed, indeed, ma, you are too serious.  You are frightened at a shadow.  No one of my friends enjoys better general health than I do.”

“And so might the graceful maple say of the sturdy oak in the first years of their existence.  But long after the first had been humbled beneath the hand of decay, the other would stand with its roots more firmly imbedded in the earth, and its limbs battling the storms as vigorously as ever.”

Amanda made no reply to this, for she was suddenly struck with its force.  Still she only pretended to loosen her stays to satisfy her mother, while the lacings remained as tense as ever.