"Happy! Pah!" retorted Edith, with spirit. "Who knows if it
wasn't the only really happy thing in her life? The snobs
and prigs all scold her and preach sermons at her--they did
it in her lifetime: they do it now----"Oh come, I'm neither
a snob nor a prig," put in Celia, looking up in her turn,
and tempering with a smile the energy of her tone--"I
don't blame her for her Bothwell; I don't criticize her.
I never was even able to mind about her killing Darnley.
You see I take an extremely liberal view. One might almost
call it broad. But if I had been one of her ladies--her
bosom friends--say Catherine Seton--and she had talked
with me about it--I think I should have confessed to some
forebodings--some little misgivings."
"And do you know what she would have said?"
Edith's swift question, put with a glowing face and a
confident voice, had in it the ring of assured triumph.
"She would have answered you: 'My dearest girl, all my
life I have done what other people told me to do. In my
childhood I was given in marriage to a criminal idiot.
In my premature widowhood I was governed by a committee
of scoundrels of both sexes until another criminal
idiot was imposed upon me as a second husband.
My own personality has never had the gleam of a chance.
I have never yet done any single thing because I wanted
to do it.
Pages:
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353