“I do not blame you, dear,” said Hazel sadly; “I only think it was a pity that you should have ordered goods for which we had not the money to pay.”
“And was I—a lady—to go on living in the mean, sordid, penurious way you proposed, Hazel? Shame upon you! Where is your respect for your wretched, unhappy parent?”
It was in Hazel’s heart to say, half angrily, “Oh, mother, dear mother, pray do not go on so!” but she simply replied, “I know, dear, that it is very hard upon you, but we are obliged to live within our means.”
“Yes: thanks to you, Hazel,” retorted her mother. “I might be living at ease, as a lady should, if my child were considerate, and had not given her heart to selfishness and a downright direct love of opposition to her parent’s wishes.”
“Dear mother,” cried Hazel piteously, “indeed I do try hard to study you in everything.”
“It ought to want no trying, Hazel. It ought to be the natural outcome of your heart if you were a good and affectionate child. Study me, indeed! See what you have brought me to! Did I ever expect to go about in these wretched, shabby, black things, do you suppose—I—I, who had as many as two dozen dresses upon the hooks in my wardrobe at one time? Oh, Hazel, if you would conquer the stubbornness of that heart!”
“My dear mother, I must go and put away the dinner-things; but I do not like to leave you like this.”
“Oh, pray go, madam; and follow your own fancies to the top of your bent. I am only your poor, weak mother, and what I say or do matters very little. Never mind me, I shall soon be dead and cold in my grave.”
“Oh, my dear mother, pray, pray do not talk like this!”
“And all I ask is, that there may be a simple headstone placed there, with my name and age; and, if it could possibly be managed, and not too great an expense and waste of money for so unimportant a person, I should like the words to be cut deeply in the marble,—or, no, I suppose it would be only stone, common stone—just these simple words: ‘She never forgot that she was a lady.’”