My Master’s Sister. 169

progress of mental disease, especially where that
progress is downwards. We hoped as long as we
could, following the doctors’ advice to divert her
mind in every way possible ; but you might as well
try to tempt the tide to rise when it is ebbing, as to
rouse a mind that has fixed and settled itself in
despondency. If she would have seconded our
efforts—for she might have done it at first—what
misery would have been saved! but the time came
when she no longer had the power to govern her
mind, And my mother was with her day after day,
all day, while I was absent at the school. Yet even
I had a hard struggle at times, when I considered
that if I had not been so engrossed in my own
affairs, I might have prevented things from coming
to such a pitch. My sister’s state, however, warned
me of the danger of suffering one’s mind to dwell
on what could no longer be altered, and I threw
myself as heartily as I was able into my present
work,

“ There was another new teacher in the school at
that time
seemed, like mysclf, to stand apart from the society

an Italian refugee named Rinaldi—who

 

formed by the other masters. Some of the lower
and coarser-minded boys in the school considered
him, because he was a forcigner, a fitting butt for
their rude jests ; and on their attempting them once