A very few minutes of this
were more than I could bear; and, almost crying, I said, "Why, mamma, what
makes you do so?" Then the play was over; and she was once more the wise
and tender mother, telling me playfully that it was precisely in such a
way I had stared, the day before, at the clothes of two ladies who had
come in to visit her. I never needed that lesson again. To this day, if I
find myself departing from it for an instant, the old tingling shame burns
in my cheeks.
To this day, also, the old tingling pain burns my cheeks as I recall
certain rude and contemptuous words which were said to me when I was very
young, and stamped on my memory forever. I was once called a "stupid
child" in the presence of strangers. I had brought the wrong book from my
father's study. Nothing could be said to me to-day which would give me a
tenth part of the hopeless sense of degradation which came from those
words. Another time, on the arrival of an unexpected guest to dinner, I
was sent, in a great hurry, away from the table, to make room, with the
remark that "it was not of the least consequence about the child; she
could just as well have her dinner afterward.
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