If I could
but bury and let rot things which torment me and come to no
settlement--if I could always do this--what a blessing it would be.
CHAPTER IX--HOLIDAYS
I have said that Ellen had a child by her first husband. Marie, for
that was her name, was now ten years old. She was like neither her
mother nor father, and yet was SHOT as it were with strange gleams
which reminded me of her paternal grandmother for a moment, and then
disappeared. She had rather coarse dark hair, small black eyes,
round face, and features somewhat blunt or blurred, the nose in
particular being so. She had a tendency to be stout. For books she
did not care, and it was with the greatest difficulty we taught her
to read. She was not orderly or careful about her person, and in
this respect was a sore disappointment--not that she was positively
careless, but she took no pride in dress, nor in keeping her room and
her wardrobe neat. She was fond of bright colours, which was another
trial to Ellen, who disliked any approach to gaudiness. She was not
by any means a fool, and she had a peculiarly swift mode of
expressing herself upon persons and things. A stranger looking at
her would perhaps have adjudged her inclined to sensuousness, and
dull.
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