During the last fortnight, enforced confinement there had sometimes made
the room seem like a prison; but now her heart swelled at the thought of
leaving it, perhaps never to return, for certainly, unless she became
submissive and obedient, she would be kept at the academy at least until
the family were ready to leave for Ion.
Then it occurred to her that there were advantages, companionships,
luxuries, to be given up, the resigning of which would be still harder.
Now that she was to leave them, she found she had grown fond of both her
young stepmother and the baby sister of whom she had once been so
jealous; and that she loved Grandma Elsie also, Aunt Elsie too; and
indeed, that almost every one in the family connection had proved
agreeable in such intercourse as she had held with them.
Alas! what a sorry exchange from their society to that of the Mantons,
and from all the loving care that had been bestowed upon her and the many
privileges accorded her at Ion and Viamede, to the neglect and
indifference to be expected from strangers! As she thought of all this
she could not contemplate the carrying out of her sentence of banishment
to Oakdale with anything like satisfaction.
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