My step-mother took a rather sensible though worldly view of her
position. She silently resolved that if abnegation were at all
compulsory, and sacrifices demanded by the new tide of affairs, they
would of course be practised, but not where the eye of curious pity
could penetrate.
The world, that had honored and respected her as the wife of a wealthy
man, should never through any fault of hers gain an insight into her
reversed fortunes. This very consciousness, that she had the
scrutinizing eye of society to deceive and a deep misery to veneer
with smooth words and a false glitter, that a fashionable pity had to
be defied and coldly rejected, lent her a heroic fortitude, schooled
her to a forbearance worthy of less sordid motives and flavoured her
very misfortunes with a vital determination that half-soothed the pain
they naturally inflicted.
In the first sad hours of our bereavement we were comforted and
consoled by many friends. I believe that my father was universally
mourned as a good citizen, of sterling worth; he had been no man's
enemy, and had served a goodly number of his fellow-creatures nobly
and generously, without ostentation or self-glory. He was ever a
careful and indulgent, though not an affectionate parent, and now that
he was gone I could afford to interpret his indifference, even in this
way, in a new and more partial manner. He had had no conception of
what the needs of a clinging, susceptible heart may be, and
transgressed entirely out of his ignorance and not through any wilful
intent to make his coldness or carelessness keenly felt.
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