All thoughts as to creature comforts were over with her now forever.
Tranquillity, a little poetry, and her darling boy, were all that she
needed for the short remainder of her sojourn upon earth. These were the
sentiments which she intended to convey when she shook her head and looked
up into his eyes. The world was over for her. She had had her day of
pleasure, and found how vain it was. Now she would devote herself to her
child. "I shall see my boy again to-night," she said, as she took her seat
in the carriage.
Such was the state of mind, or such, rather, the resolutions, with which
she commenced her journey. Should he become bright, communicative, and
pleasant, or even tenderly silent, or perhaps, now at length, affectionate
and demonstrative, she no doubt might be able to change as he changed. He
had been cousinly but gloomy at the police-court; in the same mood when he
brought her home; and, as she saw with the first glance of her eye, in the
same mood again when she met him in the hall this morning. Of course she
must play his tunes. Is it not the fate of women to play the tunes which
men dictate, except in some rare case in which the woman can make herself
the dictator? Lizzie loved to be a dictator; but at the present moment she
knew that circumstances were against her.
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