-A.
would consent to accompany her!
Good-by, dearest of one-year-old acquaintances! you, too, send your
blessing on the anniversary, now that my better memory has reminded you
of it! All that follow we will bless in company. I trust you are
one-half as happy as I am, my own, my own.
LETTER XV.
You told me, dearest, that I should find your mother formidable. It is
true; I did. She is a person very much in the grand pagan style: I admire
it, but I cannot flow in that sort of company, and I think she meant to
crush me. You were very wise to leave her to come alone.
I like her: I mean I believe that under that terribleness she has a
heart of gold, which once opened would never shut: but she has not
opened it to me. I believe she could have a great charity, that no
evil-doing would dismay her: "stanch" sums her up. But I have done
nothing wrong enough yet to bring me into her good graces. Loving her
son, even, though, I fear, a great offense, has done me no good turn.
Perhaps that is her inconsistency: women are sure to be inconsistent
somewhere: it is their birthright.
I began to study her at once, to find _you_: it did not take long. How I
could love her, if she would let me!
You know her far far better than I, and want no advice: otherwise I
would say--never praise me to her; quote my follies rather! To give
ground for her distaste to revel in will not deepen me in her bad books
so much as attempts to warp her judgment.
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