She will never be strong again, but she may live years without any especial liability to suffering." "Then I will take her away immediately," replied Mercy, in as confident and simple a manner as if she had been proposing only to move her from one room into another.

It would not seem so easy a matter for two lonely women, in a little Cape Cod village, without a male relative to help them, and with only a few thousand dollars in the world, to sell their house, break up all their life-long associations, and go out into the world to find a new home.

Associations crystallize around people in lonely and out of the way spots, where the days are all alike, and years follow years in an undeviating monotony.

Perhaps the process might be more aptly called one of petrifaction.

There are pieces of exquisite agate which were once soft wood.