I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers,
And everything but sleep."
SWINBURNE.
If anyone had told Arithelli that she was in for a sharp attack of
diphtheria, she would have felt surprised and not very much
enlightened. Her ignorance of everything connected with illness was
supreme, and since childhood she had had no recollection of medicine
and doctors. Her parents indulged in theories on the subject of
complaints, the principal one being a large disbelief in their
existence. To them anything unhealthy or ailing was an aversion, a
thing to be avoided rather than pitied.
For accidents, sprains and breakages their pharmacopoeia suggested and
did not go beyond two ideas,--salt and water and Nature.
The Oriental strain in her character helped her to endure where an
ordinary woman would have fussed, cried, or grumbled. At home if she
had had a fall or did not look her best she had been expected to
consider herself in disgrace, and to keep out of the way till such time
as she had completely recovered her looks and spirits.
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