aunt and cousins, felt that every hour she
spent at the Grange was an intrusion.
The sudden death of Dr. Adams had postponed the intended wedding of
Charles Adams's eldest daughter; and although her mother agreed that
it was their duty to forward the orphan children, she certainly felt,
as most affectionate mothers whose hearts are not very much enlarged
would feel, that much of their own savings--much of the produce of
her husband's hard labour--labour during a series of years when
her sister-in-law and her children were enjoying all the luxuries
of life--would now be expended for their support; this to an
all-sacrificing mother, despite _her sense of the duty of kindness_,
was hard to bear. As long as they were not on the spot, she theorised
continually, and derived much satisfaction from the sympathising
observations of her neighbours, and was proud, _very_ proud, of
the praise bestowed upon her husband's benevolence; but when her
sister-in-law's expensive habits were in daily array before her (the
cottage being close to the Grange,) when she knew, to use her own
expression, "that she never put her hand to a single thing;" that she
could not live without port wine, when she herself never drank even
gooseberry, except on Sundays; never ironed a collar, never dusted
the chimney-piece, or ate a shoulder of mutton--roast one day, cold
the next, and hashed the third. While each day brought some fresh
illustration of her thoughtlessness to the eyes of the wife of the
wealthy tiller of the soil, the widow of the physician thought herself
in the daily practice of the most rigid self-denial. "I am sure,"
was her constant observation to her all-patient daughter--"I am sure
I never thought it would come to this. I had not an idea of going
through so much. I wonder your uncle and his wife can permit me to
live in the way I do--they ought to consider how I was brought up."
It was in vain Mary represented that they were existing upon charity;
that they ought to be most grateful for what they received, coming as
it did from those who, in their days of prosperity, professed nothing,
while those who professed all things had done nothing. Mary would so
reason, and then retire to her own chamber to weep alone over things
more hard to bear.
It is painful to observe what bitterness will creep into the heart
and manner of really kind girls where a lover is in the case, or even
where a common-place dangling sort of flirtation is going
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