"
"It matters not a straw what it is," persisted Tom, adding humbug
to cruelty. "You would be nothing but a sham!--A live dishonesty!
A jackdaw in peacock's feathers!--I am sorry, Letty, your own
sense of truth and uprightness should not prevent even the
passing desire to act such a lie. Your fine dress would be just a
fine fib--yourself would be but a walking fib. I have been taking
too much for granted with you: I must bring you no more novels. A
volume or two of Carlyle is what _you_ want."
This was too much. To lose her novels and her new dress together,
and be threatened with nasty moral medicine--for she had never
read a word of Carlyle beyond his translation of that dream of
Richter's, and imagined him dry as a sand-pit--was bad enough,
but to be so reproved by her husband was more than she could
bear. If she was a silly and ignorant creature, she had the heart
of a woman-child; and that precious thing in the sight of God,
wounded and bruised by the husband in whom lay all her pride,
went on beating laboriously for him only. She did not blame him.
Anything was better than that. The dear, simple soul had a horror
of rebuke. It would break hedges and climb stone walls to get out
of the path of judgment--ten times more eagerly if her husband
were the judge. She wept and wailed like a sick child, until at
length the hard heart of selfish Tom was touched, and he sought,
after the fashion of a foolish mother, to read the inconsolable a
lesson of wisdom.
Pages:
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387