Family Pride; Or, Purified by SufferingHolmes, Mary Jane
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Family Pride; Or, Purified by Suffering
Holmes, Mary Jane
American fiction; Dime novels
"I wish I might stay here with you to-night. I have heard this opera
before, and it will be so tiresome. I get so sleepy while they are
singing, for I never care to watch the acting. I did at first, when it
was new, but now it seems insipid to see them make-believe, while the
theatre is worse yet," and she gave a weary yawn.
In less than three months she has exhausted fashionable life, and I
looked at her in astonishment, asking what would please her if the opera
did not. What would she like?
Turning her eyes full upon me, she exclaimed:
"I do like it some, I suppose, only I get so tired. I like to ride, I
like to skate, I like to shop, and all that; but, oh, you don't know how
I want to go home to mother and Helen. I have not seen them for so long,
but I am going in the spring--going in May. How many days are there in
March and April? Sixty-one," she continued; "then I may safely say that
in eighty days I shall see mother, and all the dear old places. It is
not a grand home like this. You, Bell, might laugh at it. Juno would, I
am sure, but you do not know how dear it is to me, or how I long for a
sight of the huckleberry hills and the rocks where Helen and I used to
play, Helen is a darling sister, and I know you will like her."
Just then Will called to say the carriage was waiting, and Katy was
driven away, while I sat thinking of her and the devoted love with which
she clings to her home and friends, wondering if it were the kindest
thing which could have been done, transplanting her to our atmosphere,
so different from her own.
March 1st.--As it was in the winter, so it is now; Mrs. Wilford Cameron
is the rage--the bright star of society--which quotes and pets and
flatters, and even laughs at her by turns; and Wilford, though still
watchful, lest she should do something _outre_, is very proud of her,
insisting upon her accepting invitations, sometimes two for one evening,
until the child is absolutely worn out, and said to me once, when I told
her how well she was looking and how pretty her dress was: "Yes, pretty
enough, but I am so tired. If I could lie down on mother's bed, in a
shilling calico, just as I used to do!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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