Helen worshiped her two children, and thought, as home-bred
women will, that all the world was made for them, or to be considered
after them. She tended Laura with a watchfulness of affection which
never left her. If she had a headache, the widow was as alarmed as if
there had never been an aching head before in the world. She slept and
woke, read, and moved under her mother's fond superintendence, which
was now withdrawn from her, along with the tender creature whose
anxious heart would beat no more. And painful moments of grief and
depression no doubt Laura had, when she stood in the great careless
world alone. Nobody heeded her griefs or her solitude. She was not
quite the equal, in social rank, of the lady whose companion she was,
or of the friends and relatives of the imperious, but kind
old dowager.
Some, very likely, bore her no good-will--some, perhaps, slighted her:
it might have been that servants were occasionally rude; their
mistress certainly was often. Laura not seldom found herself in family
meetings, the confidence and familiarity of which she felt were
interrupted by her intrusion; and her sensitiveness of course was
wounded at the idea that she should give or feel this annoyance.
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