"Father hadn't—and wasn't."
"He was as shiftless a man as ever wore shoe-leather; he wasn't a bit of help to a woman. All he cared for was to lose his time in his books; and that's the way this man'll do, and leave you to take the brunt of everything. Your time'll go in cookin' and mendin' and washin' up; and you'll have to be at everybody's beck and call at the end o' that. If there's anything I hate, it's to be in the kitchen and parlour both at the same time."
Diana was silent.
"You might have lived like a queen."
"I don't want to live like a queen."
"You might have had your own way, Diana."
"I don't care about having my own way."
"I wish you would care, then, or had a speck of spirit. What's life good for?"
"I wish I knew"—said Diana wearily, as she rose and set back her chair.
"You never will know, in that man's house. I do think, ministers are the meanest lot o' folks there is; and that you should go and take one of them!"—