"I address Mr. Read."
"And your guardian, young lady!"
"The guardian of my property, sir."
"You are under no obligations to me, I suppose."
"None that I am conscious of. You are paid for your services and my board."
"There are cares for which money can offer no adequate compensation."
"Indeed, sir! I thought gold a cure for every ill; a reward for every toil. But we are digressing. You will do as I wish?"
"Resume your seat, if you please! The hope that I might have regarded your request favorably, is lessened by your unbecoming deportment. You are ignorant of any benefits I have conferred upon you! Since you will have a debit and credit account, I will enlighten you on this point. You came into this house two years ago—a romantic, sentimental, mawkish, spoiled child; weeping at every word which happened to jar upon your exquisite sensibilities; an unsophisticated simpleton; a fit prey for any bungler in deception; unformed in manner; womanish in feeling, and extravagant in expression. You have now, although but seventeen years of age, more sense and self-possession than most women of double your years; control the weaknesses which rendered you so ridiculous; are accomplished and respected; in short, I say it without flattery to myself, or to you, bid fair to fill your position in society creditably. You have still obstacles to surmount; but I have judged your failings leniently, attributing them, mainly, to the defects in your early training. If your mother had had the wisdom and discretion"—
"Stop, sir, stop!" exclaimed the girl, rising from her chair, and trembling in every limb with excitement "Take not the name of my holy mother upon your lips—still less cast the shadow of reproach upon her conduct! You have taught me the corruption of human nature,—have crushed all the warm affections I had been instructed to cherish;—have made the life my young mind pictured so inviting, a desert waste, inhabited by wily monsters;—but over the wreck there shines one ray, the memory of an angel lent to earth! For her sake I live among those whose form she wore, but with whose foul hearts hers could have had no fellowship. You tell me she was like the rest, that the religion, in her so lovely, is a delusion—and I answer, I do not believe you. In her name I refute your vile sophisms! Heaven knows how little I have profited by her counsels and example. I loathe myself! 'A woman,' you said! rather a fiend! for such is woman when she buries her heart, nor mourns above its grave. 'Control my feelings!' I do! I have driven back the tears until the scalding waves have killed whatever in my soul could boast a heavenly birth. There is nothing there to prove my relationship to my mother, but her memory. When that is destroyed I shall go mad. I am on the verge of insanity now—I often am! I do not doubt your assertions as to your, and shame on me that I should say it, my brethren; for in yourself I see all the traits you ascribe to them. Woman, you say, belongs to an order of yet inferior beings; and in your daughter I have an illustration of this; for she inherits her father's character, combined with a meaner mind. You consider that I owe you respect,—I do not! I am superior to you both, for I still struggle with the emotions our Creator kindled up within us, and sent us to earth to extinguish. Within your bosoms there are only cold ashes. Frown as you please! your anger intimidates as little as your ridicule abashes. The idea once entered my mind that I could win you and your child to love me. I could laugh at the thought; that was in my sentimental days, when I deemed that the desolate orphan must find affection somewhere. My most 'extravagant' imaginings never paint such a possibility now. I have done. We understand each other. The contempt you had for the 'mawkish' baby, cannot equal mine for you. You will say no more of obligation and respect. I despise you, and I owe you nothing?"
"Is the girl mad in good earnest?" gasped the cause of this burning torrent, as the door closed upon her. "She's a dangerous customer when her blood is up—a perfect Vesuvius, and I came near being Herculaneum or Pompeii. I've seen Ross in these tantrums, when we were chums together. She looked like her father when she said she was my superior. Bah!" He picked up his "Enquirer," but the political news was stale and vapid: the "Whig" was tried with no better success. In the centre of the racy editorial, and oddly mixed with the advertisements, was that incarnation of pride and passion, which through her eyes, more plainly than her lips, said, "I despise you, and I owe you nothing." Thus stood her part of the account he had proposed to examine.