She would wake in the night, and cheat her restlessness by
inventions that teased, while they sometimes diverted her
companions.
'She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case
did somewhat alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the
profound ignorance as to this peculiar being, usual in the
overseeing of the young. They consulted a physician, who said
she would outgrow it, and prescribed a milk diet.
'Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated
nature was constantly increased by the restraints and narrow
routine of the boarding school. She was always devising means
to break in upon it. She had a taste--which would have seemed
ludicrous to her mates, if they had not felt some awe of her,
from the touch of genius and power that never left her--for
costume and fancy dresses. There was always some sash twisted
about her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of
her hair and dress; so that the methodical preceptress dared
not let her go out without a careful scrutiny and remodelling,
whose soberizing effects generally disappeared the moment she
was in the free air.
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