But the lass is bright; she's as
like you as two peas in a pod. If ye'd had the chance she's had--"
Rising color in Isabella's face warned John to stop. It is a strange
thing to see how often there hovers a flitting shadow of jealousy
between a mother and the daughter to whom the father unconsciously
manifests a chivalrous tenderness akin to that which in his youth he had
given only to the sweetheart he sought for wife. Unacknowledged,
perhaps, even unmanifested save in occasional swift and unreasonable
petulances, it is still there, making many a heartache, which is none
the less bitter that it is inexplicable to itself, and dares not so much
as confess its own existence.
"It's a better thing for a woman to make her way i' the world on the
book-learnin' than to be always at the wheel an' the churn an' the
floors to be whitened," replied Isabella, sharply. "An' one year like
another, till the year comes ye're buried. I look for Bel to marry a
minister, or maybe even better."
"Ye'd a chance at a minister yersel', then, my girl," replied the wise
John, "an' ye did not take it.
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