But he put me off with
careless, jesting words, which he learned to repent of bitterly
afterwards.
"Joshua was as pious and respectable a man as ever lived: but it was
his misfortune to be too easy-tempered, and too proud of his daughter.
Having lost his wife, and his eldest boy and girl, he seemed so fond of
Mary, that he could deny her nothing. There was, to be sure, another
one left of his family of children, who--"
(Here, again, Mat lost patience. He had been muttering to himself
angrily for the last minute or two, while he read--and now once more he
passed over several lines of the letter, and went on at once to a new
paragraph.)
"I have said she was vain of her good looks, and bold, and flighty; and
I must now add, that she was also hasty and passionate, and reckless.
But she had wheedling ways with her, which nobody was sharp enough to
see through but me. When I made complaints against her to her father,
and proved that I was right in making them, she always managed to get
him to forgive her. She behaved, from the outset, (though I stood in
the place of a mother to her,) as perversely towards me as usual, in
respect to Mr. Carr. It had flattered her pride to be noticed and bowed
to just as if she was a born lady, by a gentleman, and a customer at
the shop.
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