"If I could only think you did not hate me, Miss Miriam," she said, "I
believe I could be better satisfied to lead the life I do."
"Hate you! Why should I hate you, Mrs. Clayton? You are only a tool in
the hands of my persecutor, I know, from your own confession, and I
understand your motive better in the last few moments than I did before
(inadequate as it seems to my sense of justice), for aiding this
oppressor. You have been very kind to me in some respects; an inferior
person could have tortured in a thousand ways, where you have shown
yourself considerate, delicate even, and for all this I thank you more
than I can express. I should be very ungrateful, indeed, were I to hate
you. The word is strong."
"Yet you prefer even that hump-backed child to me or my society," she
said, peevishly.
"The comparison cannot be instituted with any propriety," I responded,
gravely, turning away and dismissing the boy to his blocks and books, as
I did so, which made for him, I knew, a fairy kingdom of delight,
through the aid of his splendid imagination.
A commonplace infant will tire of the choicest toys; they are to such
minds but effigies and delusion, which last, the delight of imaginative
infancy, to the cut and dried, dull, childish understanding is
impossible.
I once overheard one little girl at a theatre--a splendid spectacle,
calculated to dazzle and delight imaginative childhood--say to another:
"It is nothing but make-believe! That house and garden are only painted.
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