It is so vulgar that it makes me creep. We were at
Jekyll's Island, and she had an ulcerated tooth."
"I thought she couldn't have such things?"
"She thought or pretended that she couldn't. I must say that she fought
against it with tremendous pluck; but the face kept swelling, and the
pain got to be more than she could bear. When she gave out she went to
pieces completely. She literally rolled on the floor and howled. I
couldn't go on believing in her after that. She'd actually made herself
ridiculous."
"But," began Berenice, "I should think"--
"If it had been something dangerous, so that I had had to think of her
life," went on her cousin, not heeding, "I could have borne it; but
that common thing! Why, her face looked like a drunken cook's! I can't
tell you the humiliation of it!"
"But if she could help you, why not herself?"
Mrs. Frostwinch smiled wanly.
"I've tried to think that out," answered she. "It was always said of
the old witches, you know, that they couldn't help themselves. It is
faith in somebody else that is behind the wonders they do. I've grown
very wise in the last few weeks, Bee.
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