Lily would have been incapable of so belittling her own achievement, but she was capable of a genuine appreciation, and even generous envy, for Vonnie's conscientiousness—which was more than Eleanor Stellenthorpe was. Such an ungracious reception of the parental praises and sixpences very nearly amounted to disloyalty, in her unexpressed opinion.
Her disapprobation was only felt by her children—it was seldom put into words.
Philip Stellenthorpe and anything in the nature of "scoldings" were unthinkable under the same roof, and Eleanor intensely disliked the system of punishment by which her own childhood had been made miserable.
Neither realized in the slightest degree that the atmosphere of oppressive disapproval and hurt feeling which they contrived wordlessly to diffuse whenever their children fell short of the ideal formed for them, caused infinitely greater suffering to both than the severest punishment would have done.
Occasionally, when Lily fell into one of the tempestuous crying fits sorrowfully alluded to as "temper," and entirely unrecognized as the inevitable concomitant of a highly wrought nervous organization forced into an unnatural condition of life, Eleanor would talk to her long and seriously. She was afraid that her little Lily had a morbid disposition.
"What is morbid?"
Grievance-making. Did Lily realize what an extraordinarily happy little girl she ought to be? Yes—Lily, sobbing and crying in an access of uncontrollable misery, did know how very, very happy she ought to be—truly she did. Everything in the world to make her happy, her mother sadly repeated. Then she told Lily something about her own childish days.
Things had been very different for her. Grandpapa was very strict with all his children, and Grandmamma thought nothing of giving her daughter a good whipping from time to time. How would Lily like to be shut up in her bedroom on bread and water, after receiving a hearty box on the ears, because she could not say her Duty to her Neighbour?
"Never," said Eleanor emphatically, "never have I laid a finger upon either of you."
The stories of Grandpapa's severity were terrible, and so far removed from anything in Lily's experience was his system of blows and deprivations that sometimes, in the depths of her heart, she found herself wondering if all the stories could be perfectly true?