She simply let her husband's first family alone. She
took no interest in them, neglected them absolutely, but in her
neglect was far kinder and more humane than their own father. Yet
she saw that all the money, all the pretty clothes, all the
dainties, went to her own children.
Perhaps the reader will think these unpleasant characteristics of a
harsh father and a self-centred stepmother might better be omitted
from this narrative, particularly as death claimed these two many
years ago; but in the light of after events, it is necessary to
reveal what the home environment of these children had been, how
little of companionship or kindness or spoken love had entered
their baby lives. The absence of mother kisses, of father
comradeship, of endeavor to understand them individually, to probe
their separate and various dispositions--things so essential to
the development of all that is best in a child--went far towards
governing their later actions in life. It drove the unselfish,
sweet-hearted Elizabeth to a loveless marriage; it flung poor,
little love-hungry Lydia into alien but, fortunately, loyal and
noble arms. Outsiders said, "What strange marriages!" But Lydia, at
least, married where the first real kindness she had ever known
called to her, and not one day of regret for that marriage ever
entered into her life.
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