' Before I
had been a week in the house I was the wife's favorite companion
in the absence of her husband at his place of business. She was a
highly accomplished woman, greatly her husband's superior in
cultivation, and, unfortunately for herself, also his superior in
years. The love was all on her side. Excepting certain occasions
on which he roused her jealousy, they lived together on
sufficiently friendly terms. She was one of the many wives who
resign themselves to be disappointed in their husbands--and he
was one of the many husbands who never know what their wives
really think of them. Her one great happiness was in teaching me.
I was eager to learn; I made rapid progress. At my pliant age I
soon acquired the refinements of language and manner which
characterized my mistress. It is only the truth to say that the
cultivation which has made me capable of personating a lady was
her work.
"For three happy years I lived under that friendly roof. I was
between fifteen and sixteen years of age, when the fatal
inheritance from my mother cast its first shadow on my life. One
miserable day the wife's motherly love for me changed in an
instant to the jealous hatred that never forgives.
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