“Happiness! Happiness! Do you call it happiness to be fastened up in there the greater part of the day-time?” And she pointed to the door through which Mariana had passed a short time before.
“When she is contented it is, at least, the nearest approach to happiness. And your ignorant meddling can never have a good result.”
Then Rosalie was silent, and with no heart to answer she turned away, and went upstairs to the little sitting-room.
Her own heart ached enough in all conscience. O God! to be free! away from all this coldness and hardness, and gloom and silence.
She buried her face in her hands and cried from utter dejection. When she went to wash her hands and face for dinner, she was dismayed at her own plain looks. She was very far from being ready for a meal, and made little attempt or pretence at eating what was placed before her. At last the young man who waited on her presented a red lozenge to her on a silver plate.
“What is it?” she asked, not being accustomed to this particular dish.
“The nutriment you require to keep you in health. You have eaten nothing, and this is less troublesome if you have no appetite.”
She frowned in indecision, and for one minute looked at him and then at it. Then without another word she ate the contents of her plate, and afterwards a plate of plain milk pudding.
But when alone again the same weak desire to cry began to gain upon her, and it was only after a very hard fight she overcame it.
“I don’t know how it is,” she sighed. “They make you do things here however much you don’t want to. I wonder now if the eating of my dinner was a lesson in self-control.”