“But do you not think, that, as I lie on my warm, soft couch at night, my heart is wrung by a keener pang than that drunkard's wife can ever know? I can lie and think that by my means, my wealth, I am making just such homes as that, making just such broken hearts, just such starving children, filling just such paupers' graves,--laying up a long store of curses and judgments, for my boy's inheritance. And I am powerless to do any thing but suffer.” And she opened the door, and walked right out. And Mr. Post stood and smiled till we got to the bottom of the stairs. “Good-afternoon, _good_-afternoon, my clear madam, call again; happy to see you--_Good_-afternoon.” Wall, Cicely went right to bed the minute we got home; and she never eat a mite of supper, only drinked a cup of tea, and thanked me so pretty for bringin' it to her. And there was such a sad and helpless, and sort of a outraged, look in her pretty brown eyes, some as a noble animal might have, who wus at bay with the cruel hunters all round it. And so I told Josiah after I went down-stairs. And the boy overheard me, and asked me 87 questions about “a animal at bay,” and what kind of a bay it was--was it the bay to a barn? or on the water? or-- Oh my land! my land! How I did suffer! But Cicely grew worse fast, from that very day. She seemed to run right down. CHAPTER XII. One day Cicely had been worryin' dretfully all the forenoon about the boy. And I declare, it seemed so pitiful to hear her talk and forebode about him, with her face lookin' so wan and white, and her big eyes so sorrowful lookin', as if they was lookin' onto all the sadness and trouble of the world, and couldn't help herself--such a sort of a hopeless look, and lovin' and broken-hearted, that it was all I could do to stand it without breakin' right down, and cry in' with her. But I knew her state, and held firm. And she went over all the old grounds agin to me, that she had foreboded on; and I went over all the old grounds of soothing agin and agin. Why, good land! I had had practice enough. For every day, and every night, would she forebode and forebode, and I would soothe and soothe, till I declare for't, I should have felt (to myself) a good deal like a bread-and-milk poultice, or even lobelia or catnip, if my feelin's on the subject hadn't been so dretful deep and solemn, deeper than any poultice that was ever made--and solemner. Why, Tirzah Ann says to me one day,--she had been settin' with Cicely for a hour or two; and she come out a cryin', and says she,-- “Mother, I don't see how you can stand it. It would break my heart to see Cicely's broken-hearted look, and hear her talk for half a day; and you have to hear her all the time.” And she wiped her eyes.