There were times when she keenly enjoyed her independence, perfect liberty to control her own actions and choose her own work; her ability to earn a livelihood for herself; but at this moment all that was as nothing.
Usually she was submissive under her affliction; now her heart rebelled fiercely against it. She called it a hard and cruel fate, to which she could not, would not be resigned.
She was frightened at herself as she felt that she was so rebellious, and that she was envying the happiness of the cousins who had for years treated her with unvarying kindness; that her lot seemed the harder by contrast with theirs.
And yet how well she knew that theirs was not perfect happiness—that the death of the husband and father had been a sore trial to them all.
Through the open window she saw the handsome, easy-rolling family carriage drive away and disappear among the trees on the farther side of the lawn; then the croquet party setting out for the scene of their proposed game, which was at some little distance from the mansion, though within the grounds.
She noticed that Isa and Mr. Keith walked first—very close together, and looking very like a pair of lovers, she thought—then Mr. Embury with Violet's graceful, girlish figure by his side, she walking with a free, springing step that once poor Molly might have emulated, as she called to mind with a bitter groan and an almost frantic effort to rise from her chair.
Ah, what was it that so sharpened the sting brought by the thought of her own impotence, as she saw Vi's bright, beautiful face uplifted to that of her companion? A sudden glimpse into her own heart sent a crimson tide all over the poor girl's face.
"O Molly Percival, what a fool you are!" she exclaimed half aloud, then burst into hysterical weeping; but calming herself almost instantly. "No, I will not, will not be so weak!" she said, turning resolutely from the window. "I have been happy in my work, happy and content, and so will I be again. No foolish impossible dreams for you, Molly Percival! no dog in the manger feelings either; you shall not indulge them."
But the thread of thought was broken and lost, and she tried in vain to recover it; a distant hum of blithe voices came now and again to her ear with disturbing influence.