Excerpt: ... lately." "How is Ben?" "He has been here often. How strange it was that to him alone Veronica gave her hand when they met Indeed, she gave him both her hands." "And he?" "Took them, bowing over them, till I thought he wasn't coming up again. I do not call people eccentric any more," she said, faintly blushing. "I look for a reason in every action. Tell me fairly, have you had a contempt for me-for my want of perception? I understand you now, to the bone and marrow, I assure you." "Then you understand more than I do. But you will remember that once or twice I attempted to express my doubts to you?" "Yes, yes, with a candor which misled me. But you are talking too much." "Give me more broth, then." CHAPTER XXII. I was soon well enough to go home. Father came for me, bringing Aunt Merce. There was no alteration in her, except that she had taken to wearing a false front, which had a claret tinge when the light struck it, and a black lace cap. She walked the room in speechless distress when she saw me, and could not refrain from taking an immense pinch of snuff in my presence. "Didn't you bring any flag-root, Aunt Merce?" "Oh Lord, Cassandra, won't anything upon earth change you?" And then we both laughed, and felt comfortable together. Her knitting mania had given way to one she called transferring. She brought a little basket filled with rags, worn-out embroideries, collars, cuffs, and edges of handkerchiefs, from which she cut the needle-work, to sew again on new muslin. She looked at embroidery with an eye merely to its capacity for being transferred. Alice proved a treasure to her, by giving her heaps of fine work. She and Aunt Merce were pleased with each other, and when we were ready to come away, Alice begged her to visit her every year. I made no farewell visits-my ill health was sufficient excuse; but my schoolmates came to bid me good-bye, and brought presents of needlebooks, and pincushions, which I returned by giving away yards of...