human
Mamma, let them bring a candle, that I may see you; and tell my uncle to come into this room by-and-by. I want to hear him say that I am your daughter. And, mamma, take your supper here. Don't leave me for one minute to-night.
gpt
O Caroline, it is well you are gentle! You will say to me, Go, and I shall go; Come, and I shall come; Do this, and I shall do it. You inherit a certain manner as well as certain features. It will always be 'mamma' prefacing a mandate--softly spoken, though, from you, thank God! Well, she added, under her breath,
human
It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and that. I shall want nobody but you to be near me, or to do anything for me. But do not let me be troublesome. Check me if I encroach.
gpt
You must not depend on me to check you; you must keep guard over yourself. I have little moral courage; the want of it is my bane. It is that which has made me an unnatural parent--which has kept me apart from my child during the ten years which have elapsed since my husband's death left me at liberty to claim her. It was that which first unnerved my arms and permitted the infant I might have retained a while longer to be snatched prematurely from their embrace.
human
How, mamma?
gpt
I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your loveliness, deeming it the stamp of perversity. They sent me your portrait, taken at eight years old; that portrait confirmed my fears. Had it shown me a sunburnt little rustic--a heavy, blunt-featured, commonplace child--I should have hastened to claim you; but there, under the silver paper, I saw blooming the delicacy of an aristocratic flower--'little lady' was written on every trait. I had too recently crawled from under the yoke of the fine gentleman--escaped galled, crushed, paralyzed, dying--to dare to encounter his still finer and most fairy-like representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed me with dismay; her air of native elegance froze my very marrow. In my experience I had not met with truth, modesty, good principle as the concomitants of beauty. A form so straight and fine, I argued, must conceal a mind warped and cruel. I had little faith in the power of education to rectify such a mind; or rather, I entirely misdoubted my own ability to influence it. Caroline, I dared not undertake to rear you. I resolved to leave you in your uncle's hands. Matthewson Helstone I knew, if an austere, was an upright man. He and all the world thought hardly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be misjudged.
human
Mamma, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor?
gpt
It was a name in my mother's family. I adopted it that I might live unmolested. My married name recalled too vividly my married life; I could not bear it. Besides, threats were uttered of forcing me to return to bondage. It could not be. Rather a bier for a bed, the grave for a home. My new name sheltered me. I resumed under its screen my old occupation of teaching. At first it scarcely procured me the means of sustaining life; but how savoury was hunger when I fasted in peace! How safe seemed the darkness and chill of an unkindled hearth when no lurid reflection from terror crimsoned its desolation! How serene was solitude, when I feared not the irruption of violence and vice!
human
But, mamma, you have been in this neighbourhood before. How did it happen that when you reappeared here with Miss Keeldar you were not recognized?
gpt
I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago, and then I was very different to what I am now--slender, almost as slender as my daughter is at this day. My complexion, my very features are changed; my hair, my style of dress--everything is altered. You cannot fancy me a slim young person, attired in scanty drapery of white muslin, with bare arms, bracelets and necklace of beads, and hair disposed in round Grecian curls above my forehead?
human
You must, indeed, have been different. Mamma, I heard the front door open. If it is my uncle coming in, just ask him to step upstairs, and let me hear his assurance that I am truly awake and collected, and not dreaming or delirious.
gpt
She's not worse, I hope?
human
I think her better. She is disposed to converse; she seems stronger.
gpt
Good! said he, brushing quickly into the room.--
human
Ha, Cary! how do? Did you drink my cup of tea? I made it for you just as I like it myself.
gpt
I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good; it has made me quite alive. I have a wish for company, so I begged Mrs. Pryor to call you in.