Father sat pale and inflexible; tear after tear
rolling down his cheeks. Ernest looked distressed and ready to sink.
As for me I cried with Martha, and with her father by turns, and
clung to Ernest with a feeling that all the foundations of the earth
were giving way. It came time for evening prayers, and Ernest prayed
as he rarely does, for he is rarely so moved. He quieted us all by a
few simple words of appeal to Him who loved us, and father then
consented to spend the summer with Martha if he might call our home
his home, and be with us through the winter. But this was not till
long after the rest of us went to bed, and a hard battle with Ernest.
He says Ernest is his favorite child, and that I am his favorite
daughter, and our children inexpressibly dear to him. I am ashamed to
write down what he said of me. Besides, I am sure there is a wicked,
wicked triumph over Martha in my secret heart. I am too elated with
his extraordinary preference for us, to sympathize with her
mortification and grief as ought. Something whispered that she who
has never pitied me deserves no pity now. But I do not like this mean
and narrow spirit in myself; nay more, I hate and abhor it.
The marriage took place and they all went off together, father's
rigid, white face, whiter, more rigid than ever. I am to go to
mother's with the children at once.
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