This something had developed itself strongly in the character of the
child, before she emerged into girlhood; and though it remained vague
as to definition, while distinct as to impression in the minds of
others, Marian herself understood it perfectly, and could have told
any one, had she chosen, what it was that made her unlike the other
children, apart from her being brighter and smarter than they, a
difference which she also perfectly understood. She would have said,
"I am very fond of money, and the others are not; they are content to
have food and clothes, but I like to see the money that is paid for
them, and to have some of it, all for myself, and to heap it up and
look at it, and I am not satisfied as they are, when they have what
they want--I want better things, nicer food, and smarter clothes, and
more than them, the money. I don't say so, because I know papa hasn't
got it, and so he cannot give it to me; but I wish he could. There is
no use talking and grumbling about things we cannot have; people laugh
at you, and are glad you are so foolish when you do that, so I say
nothing about it, but I wish I was rich."
Marian would have made some such answer to any one who should have
endeavoured to get at her mind to find out what that was lurking
there, never clearly seen, but always plainly felt, which made her
"old fashioned," in other than the pathetic and interesting sense in
which that expression has come to be used with reference to children,
before she had entered upon her teens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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