Judge Emery, remembering this prophecy, was now moved by his wife's pale agitation to a heart-sickening mixture or apprehension for her and of recollection of his own extreme discomfort whenever she was sick.
Yet in spite of this intense tension, she was unable to stop--felt she must go on, until finally, a breakdown intervened and she was compelled to lay by.
On another page a friend tells of his great-aunt's experience: 'She told me that all through her childhood her family was saving and pulling together to build a fine big house.

They worked along for years until, when she was a young lady, they finally accomplished it; built a big three-story house that was the admiration of the countryside.

Then they moved in.

And it took the womenfolks every minute of their time, and more to keep it clean and in order; it cost as much to keep it up, heated, furnished, repaired, painted and everything the way a fine house should be, as their entire living used to cost.

The fine big grounds they had laid out to go with the mansion took so much time to--' Finally Lydia herself becomes awakened, startled as she sees what everybody is trying to make her life become and she bursts out to her sister: 'I'm just frightened of--everything--what everybody expects me to do, and to go on doing all my life, and never have any time but to just hurry faster and faster, so there'll be more things to hurry about, and never talk about anything but _things!_' She began to tremble and look white, and stopped with a desperate effort to control herself, though she burst out at the sight of Mrs.Mortimer's face of despairing bewilderment.