All hold quietly to the opinion that "grandmother
would not like it."
In that quiet acre on the hillside, which holds the generations of the
Sandals, she had been at rest for ten years. But her son still bared his
gray head whenever he passed her picture; still, at times, stood a
minute before it, and said with tender respect, "I salute thee,
mother." And in her granddaughter's lives still she interfered; for she
had left in their father's charge a sum of money, which was to be used
solely to give them some pleasure which they could not have without it.
In this way, though dead, she kept herself a part of their young lives;
became a kind of fairy grandmother, who gave them only delightful
things, and her name continued a household word.
Only the mother seemed averse to speak it; and Charlotte, who was most
observant, noticed that she never lifted her eyes to the picture as she
passed it. There were reasons for these things which the children did
not understand. They had been too young at her death to estimate the
bondage in which she had kept her daughter-in-law, who, for her
husband's sake, had been ever patient and reticent. Nothing is, indeed,
more remarkable than the patience of wives under this particular trial.
They may be restive under many far less wrongs, but they bear the
mother-in-law grievance with a dignity which shames the grim joking and
the petulant abuse of men towards the same relationship.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25