Before the expiration of the second year, Nature
began to assert her authority. The paleness of Miss A's complexion
increased. An unaccountable and uncontrollable twitching of a
rhythmical sort got into the muscles of her face, and made her hands
go and feet jump. She was sent home, and her physician called, who at
once diagnosticated chorea (St. Vitus' dance), and said she had
studied too hard, and wisely prescribed no study and a long vacation.
Her parents took her to Europe. A year of the sea and the Alps, of
England and the Continent, the Rhine and Italy, worked like a charm.
The sluiceways were controlled, the blood saved, and color and health
returned. She came back seemingly well, and at the age of eighteen
went to her old school once more. During all this time not a word had
been said to her by her parents, her physician, or her teachers, about
any periodical care of herself; and the rules of the school did not
acknowledge the catamenia. The labor and regimen of the school soon
brought on the old menorrhagic trouble in the old way, with the
addition of occasional faintings to emphasize Nature's warnings. She
persisted in getting her education, however, and graduated at
nineteen, the first scholar, and an invalid.
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