Shall I break it to her,--or will you?"
"No,--yes," hesitated Mrs. Peyton; "perhaps I had better."
"Very well, I leave his character in your hands; only don't prejudice
her into a romantic fancy for him." And Judge Peyton lounged smilingly
away.
Then two little tears forced themselves from Mrs. Peyton's eyes. Again
she saw that prospect of uninterrupted companionship with Susy, upon
which each successive year she had built so many maternal hopes and
confidences, fade away before her. She dreaded the coming of Susy's
school friend, who shared her daughter's present thoughts and intimacy,
although she had herself invited her in a more desperate dread of the
child's abstracted, discontented eyes; she dreaded the advent of the boy
who had shared Susy's early life before she knew her; she dreaded the
ordeal of breaking the news and perhaps seeing that pretty animation
spring into her eyes, which she had begun to believe no solicitude or
tenderness of her own ever again awakened,--and yet she dreaded still
more that her husband should see it too. For the love of this recreated
woman, although not entirely materialized with her changed fibre, had
nevertheless become a coarser selfishness fostered by her loneliness and
limited experience. The maternal yearning left unsatisfied by the loss
of her first-born had never been filled by Susy's thoughtless acceptance
of it; she had been led astray by the child's easy transference of
dependence and the forgetfulness of youth, and was only now dimly
conscious of finding herself face to face with an alien nature.
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