She saw how utterly incapable her aunt was to render any
assistance in their desperate straits. Even the stress of their present
emergency could not prevent her mind from vainly reverting to a past that
was gone forever. Again her confidence was more severely shaken as she was
compelled to doubt the wisdom of their habits of seclusion and reticence,
of living on from year to year engrossed by memories, instead of adapting
themselves to a new order of things which they were powerless to prevent.
"Truly," she thought, "my father and mother never could have wished me to
be in this situation out of love for them. It is true I could never go to
the length that he does without great hypocrisy, and I do not see the need
of it. I can never forget the immense wrong done to me and mine, but Aunty
should have taught me something more than indignation and hostility,
however just the causes for them may be."
While such was the tenor of her thoughts, she only said a little bitterly:
"Oh, that I knew how to do something! My old nurse, Aun' Sheba, is better
off than we are."
"She belongs to us yet," said Mrs. Hunter, almost fiercely.
"You could never make her or any one else think so," was the weary reply.
"Well, now that I have thought of her, I believe I could advise with her
better than any one else."
"Advise with a slave? Oh, Mara!--"
"Whom shall I advise with then?" And there was a sharp ring in the girl's
tone.
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