Next week a second tooth may show
signs of decay, and a third in the week afterwards. Dear--dear! This
is too bad! The fact is, you are destroying your health. I've talked
and talked about the way you devour candies and sweetmeats; about
the way you sit up at night, and about a hundred other
irregularities. There must be a change in all. This, Phoebe, as I've
told you dozens and dozens of times."
Mrs. Caldwell was growing more and more excited.
"Mother! mother!" replied Phoebe, "don't fret yourself for nothing.
The speck can be removed in an instant."
"But the enamel is destroyed! Don't you see that? Decay will go on."
"I don't believe that follows at all," answered Phoebe, tossing her
head, indifferently, "And even if I believed in the worst, I'd find
more comfort in laughing than crying." And she ran off to her own
room.
Poor Mrs. Caldwell sat down to brood over this new trouble; and as
she brooded, fancy wrought for her the most unpleasing images.
She saw the beauty of Phoebe, a few years later in life, most sadly
marred by broken or discolored teeth. Looking at that, and that
alone, it magnified itself into a calamity, grew to an evil which
overshadowed everything.
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