MATERFAMILIAS BY ADA CAMBRIDGE AUTHOR OF THE THREE MISS KINGS, A MARRIAGE CEREMONY, MY GUARDIAN, NOT ALL IN VAIN, FIDELIS, A LITTLE MINX, ETC. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1898 CONTENTS. I.--THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL II.--IN THE EARLY DAYS III.--A PAGE OF LIFE IV.--THE BROKEN CIRCLE V.--A LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDING VI.--DEPOSED VII.--A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT VIII.--THE SILVER WEDDING IX.--GRANDMAMMA X.--VINDICATED CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL. My father in England married a second time when I was about eighteen. She was my governess. Mother herself had engaged her, and I believe had asked, when dying, that she would remain to take care of us; and I don't say that she was not a good woman. She had been nearly five years in the house, and we had the habit of looking to her for advice in all family concerns; and certainly she took great pains with my education. But of course I was not going to stand seeing her put in mother's place. I told father so. I said to him, kindly, but firmly: "Father, you will have to choose between us. There will not be room under this roof for both." He chose her. Consequently I left my home, though they both tried hard to prevent it, and to reconcile me to their new arrangements. I will say that for them. In fact, my father, pleading legal rights, forbade me to go, except for some temporary visiting. I went on the understanding that I was to return in a couple of months or so. But I was resolved not to return, and I never did. While staying with my uncle, a medical man, I privately married his assistant--one (if I may say so) of a miscellaneous assortment of admirers. I am afraid I encouraged him to propose an elopement; I certainly hastened its accomplishment. Then after all our plottings and stratagems, when at last I had the ring on my finger, I wrote to inform father of what he and Miss Coleman had driven me to. Poor old father! It was a tremendous blow to him. But I don't know why he should have made such a fuss about it, seeing that he had done the same--practically the same--himself. It was a greater disaster to me than to him, or to anybody--even to my husband, who almost from the first regarded me as a millstone about his neck; for _he_ could go away and enjoy himself when he liked, forgetting that I existed. Indeed, it was a horrible catastrophe. When my own children are so anxious to get married while they are still but children, and think it so cruel of me to thwart them, I wish I could tell them what I went through at their age! But I don't mention it. I promised Tom I never would.