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child not yet sixteen being so hardened. I don’t know what to make of you, you never cry or ask forgiveness. There’s dear little Gertie now, she is often naughty, but when I correct her she frets and worries and shows herself to be a human being and not a fiend.”
    So saying my mother went out of the room.
    â€œI’ve asked forgiveness once too often, to be sat upon for my pains,” I called out.
    â€œI believe you’re mad. That is the only feasible excuse I can make for your conduct,” she said as a parting shot.
    â€œWhy the deuce don’t you two get to bed and not wrangle like a pair of cats in the middle of the night, disturbing a man’s rest?” came in my father’s voice from amid the bedclothes.
    My mother is a good woman—a very good woman—and I am, I think, not quite all criminality, but we do not pull together. I am a piece of machinery which, not understanding, my mother winds up the wrong way, setting all the wheels of my composition going in creaking discord.
    She wondered why I did not cry and beg forgiveness, and thereby give evidence of being human. I was too wrought up for tears. Ah, that tears might have come to relieve my overburdened heart! I took up the homemade tallow candle in its tin stick and looked at my pretty sleeping sister Gertie (she and I shared the one bed). It was as Mother had said. If Gertie was scolded for any of her shortcomings, she immediately took refuge in tears, said she was sorry, obtained forgiveness, and straightaway forgot the whole matter. She came within the range of Mother’s understanding, I did not; she had feelings, Mother thought, I had none. Did my mother understand me, she wouldknow that I am capable of more depths of agony and more exquisite heights of joy in one day than Gertie will experience in her whole life.
    Was I mad as Mother had said? A fear took possession of me that I might be. I certainly was utterly different from any girl I had seen or known. What was the hot, wild spirit which surged within me? Ah, that I might weep! I threw myself on my bed and moaned. Why was I not like other girls? Why was I not like Gertie? Why were not a new dress, everyday work, and an occasional picnic sufficient to fill my mind? My movements awakened Gertie.
    â€œWhat is the matter, dear Sybylla? Come to bed. Mother has been scolding you. She is always scolding someone. That doesn’t matter. You say you are sorry, and she won’t scold anymore. That’s what I always do. Do get into bed. You’ll be tired in the morning.”
    â€œWhat does it matter if I will be. I wish I would be dead. What’s the good of a hateful thing like I am being alive. No one wants or cares for me.”
    â€œI love you, Sybylla, better than all the rest. I could not do without you,” and she put her pretty face to mine and kissed me.
    What a balm to the tempest-tossed soul is a little love, though it may be fleeting and fickle! I was able to weep now, with wild, hot tears, and with my sister’s arms around me I fell asleep without undressing further.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Was E’er a Rose Without Its Thorn?
    I arose from bed next morning with three things in my head—a pair of swollen eyes, a heavy pain, and a fixed determination to write a book. Nothing less than a book. A few hours’ work in the keen air of a late autumn morning removed the swelling from my eyes and the pain from my temples, but the idea of relieving my feelings in writing had taken firm root in my brain. It was not my first attempt in this direction. Two years previously I had purloined paper and sneaked out of bed every night at one or two o’clock to write a prodigious novel in point of length and detail, in which a full-fledged hero and heroine performed the duties of a hero and heroine in the orthodox manner. Knowing our circumstances, my grandmother was accustomed, when writing to me, to enclose a stamp to enable me to reply.