A word must be said as to the fate of poor Sel, which was mournful enough.  Her trances grew gradually more frequent and erratic, till she became so thoroughly diseased in mind and body as to be entirely unfitted for household work, and, in short, nothing but an encumbrance.  We kept her, however, for the sake of charity, and should have done so till her poor, tormented life wore itself out; but after the advent of a new servant, and my mother’s death, she conceived the idea that she was a burden, cried over it a few weeks, and at last, one bitter winter’s night, she disappeared.  We did not give up all search for her for years, but nothing was ever heard from her.  He, I hope, who permitted life to be such a terrible mystery to her, has cared for her somehow, and kindly and well.

In the Gray Goth.

If the wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight I don’t believe it would ever have happened.

Where is the poker, Johnny?  Can’t you push back that for’ard log a little?  Dear, dear!  Well, it doesn’t make much difference, does it?  Something always seems to all your Massachusetts fires; your hickory is green, and your maple is gnarly, and the worms eat out your oak like a sponge.  I haven’t seen anything like what I call a fire,—­not since Mary Ann was married, and I came here to stay.  “As long as you live, father,” she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an open fire, and how she wouldn’t let Jacob put in the air-tight in the sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose.  Mary Ann was a good girl always, if I remember straight, and I’m sure I don’t complain.  Isn’t that a pine-knot at the bottom of the basket?  There! that’s better.

Let me see; I began to tell you something, didn’t I?  O yes; about that winter of ’41.  I remember now.  I declare, I can’t get over it, to think you never heard about it, and you twenty-four year old come Christmas.  You don’t know much more, either, about Maine folks and Maine fashions than you do about China,—­though it’s small wonder, for the matter of that, you were such a little shaver when Uncle Jed took you.  There were a great many of us, it seems to me, that year, I ’most forget how many;—­we buried the twins next summer, didn’t we?—­then there was Mary Ann, and little Nancy, and—­well, coffee was dearer than ever I’d seen it, I know, about that time, and butter selling for nothing; we just threw our milk away, and there wasn’t any market for eggs; besides doctor’s bills and Isaac to be sent to school; so it seemed to be the best thing, though your mother took on pretty badly about it at first.  Jedediah has been good to you, I’m sure, and brought you up religious,—­though you’ve cost him a sight, spending three hundred and fifty dollars a year at Amherst College.

But, as I was going to say, when I started to talk about ’41,—­to tell the truth, Johnny, I’m always a long while coming to it, I believe.  I’m getting to be an old man,—­a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes, when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it’s just like the toothache, Johnny.  As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I do believe it wouldn’t have happened,—­though it isn’t that I mean to lay the blame on her now.