This has been a long
trial, and nothing has softened her.'
'Suppose this was the very thing.'
'If it were, what is past should not go unrequited, and the change
will teach her what she has rejected. Hush, dearest, it is not that
I do not think that you have done all for her that tenderness or good
sense could devise, but your time is too much occupied, and I cannot
see you overtasked by this poor child's headstrong temper. It is
decided, Albinia; say no more.'
'I have failed,' thought Albinia, as he left the room. 'He decides
that I have failed in bringing up his children. What have I done?
Have I been mistaken? have I been careless? have I not prayed enough?
Oh! my poor, poor Sophy! What will she do among strange girls? Oh!
how wretched, how harsh, how misunderstood she will be! She will
grow worse and worse, and just when I do think I might have begun to
get at her! And it is for my sake! For me that her father is set
against her, and is driving her out from her home! Oh! what shall I
do? Winifred will promote it, because they all think I am doing too
much! I wonder what put that in Edmund's head? But when he speaks
in that way, I have no hope!'
Mr. Kendal's anger took a direction with which she better sympathized
when he walked down Tibbs's Alley, and counted the nine beer shops,
which had never dawned on his imagination, and which so greatly
shocked it, that he went straight to the astonished Pettilove, and
gave him a severe reprimand for allowing the houses to be made dens
of iniquity and disorder.
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