Their conversation
reverted to their unhappy position, and to the difficulty of making an
immediate change. For not only was the dower-house in an untenantable
state, but the weather was very much against them. The gray weather, the
gloomy sky, the monotonous rains, the melting snow, the spiteful east
wind,--by all this enmity of the elements, as well as by the enmity in
the household, the poor bereaved lady was saddened and controlled.
The wretched conversation was followed by a most unhappy silence. Both
hearts were brooding over their slights and wrongs. Day by day
Charlotte's life had grown harder to bear. Sophia's little flaunts and
dissents, her astonishments and corrections, were almost as cruel as the
open hatred of Julius, his silence, his lowering brows, and insolence
of proprietorship. To these things she had to add the intangible
contempt of servants, and the feeling of constraint in the house where
she had been the beloved child and the one in authority. Also she found
the insolence which Stephen had to brave every time he called upon her
just as difficult to bear as were her own peculiar slights. Julius had
ceased to recognize him, had ceased to speak of him except as "that
person." Every visit he made Charlotte was the occasion of some petty
impertinence, some unmistakable assurance that his presence was
offensive to the master of Seat-Sandal.
All these things troubled the mother also, but her bitterest pang was
the cruelty of Sophia.
Pages:
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228