' Wasn't it _clever_ of Mamma? And Mrs. Graham just
LOOKED at her as if she were a _camel_ from
_Barnum's_.
"Well, poor Hildegarde is sensible enough _now_ to satisfy
_even_ her mother. Ever since she came home from that
_odious_ place, it has been one round of hospitals and
tenement-houses and _sloughs of horror_. I don't mean that
she has given up school, for she is studying harder than
ever; but out of school she is simply _swallowed up_ by
these wretched things. I have remonstrated with her _almost_
on my KNEES. 'Hildegarde,' I said one day, 'do you
REALIZE that you are practically _giving up_ your
_whole_ LIFE? If you once _lose your place_ in
Society among those of your _own age_ and _position_, you
NEVER can regain it. Do you REALIZE this, Hilda?
for I feel it a SOLEMN DUTY to _warn_ you!' My
dear, she actually LAUGHED! and only said, 'Dear
Madge, I have only just begun to have any life!' And that
was _all_ I could get out of her, for just then some one
came in. But even _this_ is not _the worst_! Oh, Helen! she
has some of the _creatures_ whom she saw this summer,
actually _staying_ in the house,--in THAT house,
which we used to call Castle Graham, and were almost afraid
to enter ourselves, so stately and beautiful it was! There
are two of these creatures,--a girl about our age, some sort
of dreadful cripple, who goes about in a bath-chair, and a
freckled imp of a boy.
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