“You know——you know,” said she, in a broken voice, “that I am miserable: you know why I am miserable.”
“I see that you are unhappy; but, unless there be something that I am ignorant of, I see no reason why you should not be as happy as other people if you choose it.”
“No, never; nobody loves me; people pity me, and look down upon me, and do what they can to help me; but they do not love me, and I cannot live without being loved.”
“Supposing all this to be true, which I think it is not, how happens it?”
“Ah! that is the misery of it. I know you think I deserve it; and I do in part; but indeed, indeed I am not understood.”
“If so, I ask again, how happens it?”
Anna was silent.
“Think and speak honestly,” continued her father, after a pause: “this is too serious a matter to be trifled with. If you are indeed misunderstood by all the world, where does the fault lie? is all the world to blame, or are you?”
“I am partly, I own; I have made some great mistakes about myself, which I can never repair, and——”
“Stop, my love; I never sanction the belief that any mistakes are quite beyond reparation. You have committed errors in your management of yourself; but, while you live, you have the power of retracing your steps. Go back to the point where your errors began, and then you can proceed in the safe and right way in which it has ever been my wish to guide you.”