She had never had enough of solitude, and this quiet home,
with the song of the river for company, if one needed more
company than chickens and a cat, satisfied all her desires,
particularly as it was accompanied by a snug little income
of two hundred dollars a year, a meagre sum that seemed to open
up mysterious avenues of joy to her starved, impatient heart.
When she was a mere infant, her brother was holding
her on his knee before the great old-fashioned fireplace
heaped with burning logs. A sudden noise startled him,
and the crowing, restless baby gave an unexpected lurch, and slipped,
face downward, into the glowing embers. It was a full minute
before the horror-stricken boy could extricate the little creature
from the cruel flame that had already done its fatal work.
The baby escaped with her life, but was disfigured forever.
As she grew older, the gentle hand of time could not entirely
efface the terrible scars. One cheek was wrinkled and crimson,
while one eye and the mouth were drawn down pathetically.
The accident might have changed the disposition of any child,
but Lyddy chanced to be a sensitive, introspective bit of feminine
humanity, in whose memory the burning flame was never quenched.
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