Indeed, I don't deserve it. You would not give
it me if you knew how naughty I am."
These broken sentences were by both mother and son altogether
misinterpreted. The mother, now hearing for the first time of
Godfrey's present, was filled with jealousy, and began to revolve
thoughts of dire disquietude: was the hussy actually beginning to
gain her point, and steal from her the heart of her son? Was it
in the girl's blood to wrong her? The father of her had wronged
her: she would take care his daughter should not! She had taken a
viper to her bosom! Who was _she_, to wriggle herself into
an old family and property? Had _she_ been born to such
things? She would teach her who she was! When dependents began to
presume, it was time they had a lesson.
Letty could not bear the sight of the books and their shelves;
the very beauty of the bindings was a reproach to her. From the
misery of this fresh burden, this new stirring of her sense of
hypocrisy, she began to wish herself anywhere out of the house,
and away from Thornwick. It was torture to her to think how she
had deceived Cousin Godfrey at the hut; and throughout the night,
across the darkness, she felt, though she could not see, the
books gazing at her, like an embodied conscience, from the wall
of her chamber. Twenty times that night she started from her
sleep, saying, "I will go where they shall never see me"; then
rose with the dawn, and set herself to the hardest work she could
find.
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