"Those are very pretty bracelets, but yours are not nearly so big as poor
mamma's, and you don't wear half so many."
Was it that inherent feminine quality, tact or spite, according as it is
used, which teaches women to find out, and either avoid or wound one
another's sore places, which made the little girl so often refer to "poor
mamma?" Or had she been taught to do it?
Christian could not tell. But it had to be borne, and she was learning
how to bear it, she answered kindly.
"Probably I do wear fewer ornaments than your mamma did, for she
was rich, and I was poor. Indeed, I have no ornaments to wear except
what your papa has given me."
"He gives you lots of things, doesn't he? Every thing you have?"
"Yes."
"Do you like his doing it?"
"Very much indeed."
"Then was that the reason you married him? Aunt Henrietta said it
was."
Christian's blood boiled. And yet Letitia only repeated what she had
been told.
"My child," she said, feeling that now was the time to speak, and that
the truth must be spoken even to a child, "your Aunt Henrietta makes a
great mistake. She says and believes what is not true. I married your
papa because I"--(oh that she could have said "loved him!")--"I thought
him the best man in the world.
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