Oh,
Sophy, God's blessing can make all these tears come to joy.'
Albinia's own tears were flowing so fast, that she broke off to hide
them in her own room, her heart panting with hope, and yet with grief
and pity for the piteous disclosure of so dreary a girlhood. After
all, childhood, if not the happiest, is the saddest period of
life--pains, griefs, petty tyrannies, neglects, and terrors have
not the alleviation of the experience that 'this also shall pass
away;' time moves with a tardier pace, and in the narrower sphere
of interests, there is less to distract the attention from the load
of grievances. Hereditary low spirits, a precocious mind, a reserved
temper, a motherless home, the loss of her only congenial companion,
and the long-enduring effect of her illness upon her health, had all
conspired to weigh down the poor girl, and bring on an almost morbid
state of gloomy discontent. Her father's second marriage, by
enlivening the house, had rendered her peculiarities even more
painful to herself and others, and the cultivation of mind that was
forced upon her, made her more averse to the trifling and
playfulness, which, while she was younger, had sometimes brightened
and softened her. And this was the girl whom her father had resolved
upon sending to the selfish, inconsiderate, frivolous world of
school-girls, just when the first opening had been made, the first
real insight gained into her feelings, the first appearance of having
touched her heart! Albinia felt baffled, disappointed, almost
despairing.
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