Aunt Patty's Paying Guests
9781465683502
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
NO books for twelve months at least, said Dr. Algar, our family physician. "This overworked little brain needs repose. So remember, Nan—no books." "No books?" I repeated in utter dismay. "But that is impossible—quite impossible, Dr. Algar!" "Oh, I do not mean that you may not read a storybook now and then, or amuse yourself with the magazines," he said calmly, "but anything like study I absolutely forbid." His words fell on my ears like a sentence of doom. How could I give up my studies? My intellectual work was more to me than anything else, though of late it had become a burden, and I could not bear to renounce the hopes and ambitions on which my heart was set. For months I had been working my hardest in preparation for Matriculation. I wanted to take honours, for I thought that distinction would help me to obtain a good post as teacher in a school. I worked under disadvantages, for I had a daily engagement as governess which occupied the best part of each day. My pupils were very young, and their instruction did not involve for me any mental strain; but they were tiresome, spoiled children, and I often returned home from teaching them feeling irritated. Tea generally revived me, and I devoted the evening to study. As the time fixed for the examination drew nearer, I sometimes rose at six, and did an hour's work before breakfast. It was not easy to leave my bed in the raw cold of the early morning and dress by gaslight. In spite of the little oil stove which I used to kindle in my room, the cold seemed to benumb all my faculties. After a while I decided that it was better to work late at night, and I would sit up wrestling with some mathematical problem long after the other members of the household were wrapped in slumber. Soon I began to be conscious of a sick, dizzy sensation when I rose; severe headaches often interrupted my studies; it became increasingly difficult for me to concentrate my thoughts. "How cross Nan is!" I used to hear my younger sisters whisper to each other, and my conscience told me that the words were true, and reproached me also for the way in which I lost patience with my little pupils. At last there came an hour when everything faded from me as I sat at my desk. My spirit seemed to go away to the very bounds of existence. As from a great distance I came back to consciousness, with a singing in my ears and a feeling of deadly sickness, and beheld the faces of mother, Olive, and our maid of all work looking down on me.
