Home Influence: A Tale for Mothers and DaughtersAguilar, Grace
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Home Influence: A Tale for Mothers and Daughters
Aguilar, Grace
Domestic fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction
"It is Monday morning, my dears, and I find Ellis and Morris require my
attention for a longer time than I expected," Mrs. Hamilton said, as she
entered the school-room, and found the three girls preparing their
books, "so I must set you all to work, and see how well you can get on
without me till eleven, when I will rejoin you. I shall order the
carriage at half-past twelve, and if all I require is completed, we will
pay your favorite old ruin a visit, Emmy; the morning is so lovely, that
I think we may venture to take our sketch-books, and see what other part
of Berry Pomeroy we can take pencil possession of."
Such an anticipation was quite enough for Emmeline. Her dance about the
room was only checked by the idea that her lessons would never be ready,
nor her exercises and sums done, unless she sat quietly down, and so,
with a great effort, she gave all her attention to her various tasks,
and mastered them even before her mother returned. Ellen, though she
tried quite as much, was not so successful. The Prince William would
sail in miniature on her slate, over all her figures. The recollection
of the awful storm they had encountered on their voyage to England would
return so vividly, that the very room seemed to heave. And then--but she
could not make out why she should think about that then--her mother's
death-bed came before her and her promise, and it seemed harder still to
part with Edward, from a vague dread that came over her, but still she
tried to attend to what she had to do, and congratulated herself on its
completion before her aunt appeared.
Caroline, alone, was determined not to work. Because she had not made
herself miserable enough already, the most unfounded jealousy entered
her head from seeing her mother's caressing kindness toward Ellen at
breakfast; why was not her manner as kind to her! She was quite as
unhappy, and her mother must see it, but she took no notice of her--only
of Ellen. She might be cross sometimes, but she never told stories or
tried to hide her faults, and it was very hard and unjust that she
should be treated so like a child, and Ellen made so much of; and so she
thought and thought, not attempting to do a single thing till she
actually made herself believe, for the time, that her kind, indulgent
mother had no love for her; and every thing looked blacker than before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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