Tales and stories were
not often within her reach, but her appetite seemed to be universal,
and Albinia saw her reading old-fashioned standard poetry--such as
she had never herself assailed--and books of history, travels, or
metaphysics. She wondered whether the girl derived any pleasure from
them, or whether they were only a shield for doing nothing; but no
inquiry produced an answer, and if Sophy remembered anything of them,
it was not with the memory used in lesson-time. The attachment to
Louisa Osborn was pertinacious and unaccountable in a person who
could have so little in common with that young lady, and there was
nothing comfortable about her except her fondness for her little
brother, and that really seemed to be against her will. Her voice
was less hoarse and gruff since the pond had been no more, and she
had acquired an expression, so suffering, so concentrated, so
thoughtful, that, together with her heavy black eyebrows, large face,
profuse black hair, and unlustrous eyes, it gave her almost a
dwarfish air, increased by her awkward deportment, which concealed
that she was in reality tall, and on a large scale. She looked to so
little advantage in bright delicate colours, that Albinia was often
incurring her displeasure, and risking that of Lucy, by the deep
blues and sober browns which alone looked fit to be seen with those
beetle brows and sallow features. Her face looked many years older
than that of her fair, fresh, rosy stepmother; nay, her father's
clear olive complexion and handsome countenance had hardly so aged an
aspect; and Gilbert, when he came home at Midsummer, declared that
Sophy had grown as old as grandmamma.
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