Few households have ripened a growth of womanhood without witnessing some of its manifestations, and its phenomena are largely traded in by scientific pretenders and religious fanatics.

Into this cloud, with all its risks and all its humiliations, Myrtle Hazard is about to enter.

Will she pass through it unharmed, or wander from her path, and fall over one of those fearful precipices which lie before her?
After the ancient physician had settled the general plan of treatment, its details and practical application were left to the care of his son.
Dr.Fordyce Hurlbut was a widower, not yet forty years old, a man of a fine masculine aspect and a vigorous nature.

He was a favorite with his female patients,--perhaps many of them would have said because he was good-looking and pleasant in his manners, but some thought in virtue of a special magnetic power to which certain temperaments were impressible, though there was no explaining it.

But he himself never claimed any such personal gift, and never attempted any of the exploits which some thought were in his power if he chose to exercise his faculty in that direction.