It is remarkable how the whole system will sympathize with one diseased part. The cold which Amanda had taken concentrated its active effects upon her respiratory organs; but it was felt also in every member, prostrating the whole body, and giving a sensation of general suffering. Her head ached violently, and a burning fever diffused itself over the entire surface of her body.
How sadly was she proving the truth of her mother's warning, when she said to her, in the language of divine authority, "The way of transgressors is hard."
She had violated a law of health, and in that violation, as in the violation of every physical or moral law, the penalty of transgression followed too surely.
It was a week before Amanda was able to go about again, and then her pale cheeks, and debilitated frame indicated but too plainly the sad consequences of a single imprudent act.
A few weeks after she had become restored apparently to her usual health, as Amanda was dressing one morning to go out, her mother said—
"Your clothes are a great deal too tight, Amanda."
"Oh no, I am not tight at all, ma. Julia Mason laces as tight again. She gets her sister to draw her lacings for her, and she has to pull with all her strength."
"That is wrong in Julia Mason, and yet half the pressure that she can bear would seriously injure you."
"How can that be, ma? I am as healthy as she is."
"I will tell you, Amanda. She has a full round chest, giving free play to the lungs; while your chest is narrow and flat. Without any compression, the action of your lungs is not so free and healthy as hers would be, laced as tightly as you say she laces. But when to your natural conformation you add artificial pressure, the action of your lungs becomes not only enfeebled, but the unhealthy action induced tends to develop that peculiar form of disease, the predisposition to which you inherit."