{"product_id":"2940014031288","title":"MISS LUDINGTON'S SISTER","description":"CHAPTER I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe happiness of some lives is distributed pretty evenly over the whole\u003cbr\u003estretch from the cradle to the grave, while that of others comes all at\u003cbr\u003eonce, glorifying some particular epoch and leaving the rest in shadow.\u003cbr\u003eDuring one, five, or ten blithe years, as the case may be, all the\u003cbr\u003esprings of life send up sweet waters; joy is in the very air we breathe;\u003cbr\u003ehappiness seems our native element. During this period we know what is\u003cbr\u003ethe zest of living, as compared with the mere endurance of existence,\u003cbr\u003ewhich is, perhaps, the most we have attained to before or since. With men\u003cbr\u003ethis culminating epoch comes often in manhood, or even at maturity,\u003cbr\u003eespecially with men of arduous and successful careers. But with women it\u003cbr\u003ecomes most frequently perhaps in girlhood and young womanhood.\u003cbr\u003eParticularly is this wont to be the fact with women who do not marry, and\u003cbr\u003ewith whom, as the years glide on, life becomes lonelier and its interests\u003cbr\u003efewer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the time Miss Ida Ludington was twenty-five years old she recognised\u003cbr\u003ethat she had done with happiness, and that the pale pleasures of memory\u003cbr\u003ewere all which remained to her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was not so much the mere fact that her youth was past, saddening\u003cbr\u003ethough that might be, which had so embittered her life, but the\u003cbr\u003epeculiarly cruel manner in which it had been taken from her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Ludingtons were one of the old families of Hilton, a little farming\u003cbr\u003evillage among the hills of Massachusetts. They were not rich, but were\u003cbr\u003ewell-to-do, lived in the largest house in the place, and were regarded\u003cbr\u003esomewhat as local magnates. Miss Ludington's childhood had been an\u003cbr\u003eexceptionally happy one, and as a girl she had been the belle of the\u003cbr\u003evillage. Her beauty, together, with her social position and amiability of\u003cbr\u003edisposition, made her the idol of the young men, recognised leader of the\u003cbr\u003egirls, and the animating and central figure in the social life of the\u003cbr\u003eplace.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe was about twenty years old, at the height of her beauty and in the\u003cbr\u003efull tide of youthful enjoyment, when she fell ill of a dreadful disease,\u003cbr\u003eand for a long time lay between life and death. Or, to state the case\u003cbr\u003emore accurately, the girl did die--it was a sad and faded woman who rose\u003cbr\u003efrom that bed of sickness.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47079928987888,"sku":"2940014031288","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014031288_p0.jpg?v=1763599343","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014031288","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}