I have told you
about our school days and earlier experiences. I will now tell you the
strange sequel, for I think it is time you knew it.
"When your mother was in her eighteenth year she went to visit a
widowed aunt of hers who was very wealthy, and whose entire fortune
was supposed to be accumulating for your mother's ultimate
inheritance. While she was there she met a young student who fell
violently in love with her, and whose regard she fully reciprocated.
They were both young, and handsome and ardent; both well educated and
highly accomplished, and both devotedly attached to each other. When
your mother came back he nearly died of loneliness and grief, and she
was little better, moping around the house in quiet corners, brooding
over the fire and losing interest in her former occupations. Her
father noticed the change and suspecting the truth, discountenanced it
from the very first. He did not say much to Amey herself, but I saw
that he was resolved to throw impediments in the way of their love's
progress. He called it 'stuff' and in his desire to suppress and
condemn it, he was warmly supported by his maiden sister, who had long
ago decided that Amey's husband should be entirely of her choosing,
and should be one whose social position would restore to the Hartney
family some of the _prestige_ which they had lost through reverses.
"Amey's mother was dead at this time, which accounts for the domestic
reins being altogether in the severe Miss Hartney's hands.
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