Marvellous and beautiful
is a mother's love. And when Venetia, with her strong feelings and
enthusiastic spirit, would look around and mark that a graceful form
and a bright eye were for ever watching over her wants and wishes,
instructing with sweetness, and soft even with advice, her whole soul
rose to her mother, all thoughts and feelings were concentrated in
that sole existence, and she desired no happier destiny than to pass
through life living in the light of her mother's smiles, and clinging
with passionate trust to that beneficent and guardian form.
But with all her quick and profound feelings Venetia was thoughtful
and even shrewd, and when she was alone her very love for her
mother, and her gratitude for such an ineffable treasure as parental
affection, would force her mind to a subject which at intervals had
haunted her even from her earliest childhood. Why had she only one
parent? What mystery was this that enveloped that great tie? For
that there was a mystery Venetia felt as assured as that she was a
daughter. By a process which she could not analyse, her father had
become a forbidden subject. True, Lady Annabel had placed no formal
prohibition upon its mention; nor at her present age was Venetia one
who would be influenced in her conduct by the bygone and arbitrary
intimations of a menial; nevertheless, that the mention of her father
would afford pain to the being she loved best in the world, was a
conviction which had grown with her years and strengthened with her
strength.
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