WEIRD SISTERS. 275 



spoken of as " Mam " (motlier) Betsy, Merran, or 

 whatever her baptismal name chanced to be. 



" The doctor " was of course the sibyl's born-enemy, 

 he being the sole person who ever dared oppose her 

 practices, and it was a triumph when one member of 

 the Noble Profession brought over to his way of think- 

 ing, and his way of acting, a sister of the " mystic 

 order." 



This was Mam-Willa, who, under our father's 

 tuition, became an able sick-nurse, freed from the 

 prejudices of her sisters, and the valued, sympathetic 

 friend of women, " high and low," in the hours when 

 they were rejoicing over the new-born or weeping by 

 the dead. 



She was the mother of a goodly family; her hus- 

 band was a fisherman, greatly inferior to her in intel- 

 lect, but good-natured and good-looking (two points 

 which have great weight with clever women seeking 

 their mates !) 



Willa was the name-child of a (long-since defunct) 

 member of our family, whose mother took Willa to be 

 her little maid at the early age of seven. 



The solemn old lady of ninety impressed the child 

 very much, and was greatly influential in forming her 

 character, giving to it some of her own dignified old- 

 fashioned formality. 



It was at this good dame's knee that Willa learned 

 to read, and as the Bible was the only lesson-book in 

 those days (for I am speaking of a century ago), she 

 became familiar with Holy Writ after a more enlight- 



