Suddenly, the
unforgiving baby sent forth a fresh volley of screams, and the irate
mother turned towards me with a new and awful scowl and bade
me--"Begone" that "my very presence terrified the child."
Nothing loth to leave this scene of confusion of which I myself was
the direct cause, I turned abruptly and quitted the apartment in an
impertinent silence. My step, so long as I thought my step-mother
could hear it, was quick and haughty.
I passed along the corridor above, and down the broad front stairway,
rattling the heels of my garden shoes on the tiles of the hall below
with rather unnecessary emphasis. A loud slamming of the library
door--which shook the pendants of the gasaliers and caused a momentary
quaking of the whole house--announced my exit into the side garden,
where I threaded my way among trees and flowerbeds to a vine-covered
summer-house that stood at the end of the lawn. Arrived here, I flung
myself upon one of the rustic benches that lined the walls, and
throwing my arms at full length across the small table that stood
beside me, I laid my face down upon them and burst into tears. After
all, I was only a child, though so obstinate and impulsive: only a
child, and yet I was very miserable. Reader, have you ever been
persuaded to a popular, though strange belief, that our happiest are
our youngest days? Are you able to look regretfully back upon your
long-vanished yesterdays and wish that destiny might, for one short
moment of time, let you hold them in your hands, to live them all over
again? If so, indeed your youth must have been an exceptionally happy
one: for whether I speak from a personal experience or from
observation, I cannot agree that the paths of childhood are flooded
with Life's sunshine, or overgrown with Fortune's flowers.
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