Her mother, partly to conceal her own wounded vanity, and partly
to shield the timid, morbid child, kept her out of sight as much
as possible; so that at sixteen, when she was left an orphan,
she had lived almost entirely in solitude.
She became, in course of time, a kind of general nursery
governess in a large family of motherless children.
The father was almost always away from home; his sister kept the house,
and Lyddy stayed in the nursery, bathing the brood and putting
them to bed, dressing them in the morning, and playing with them
in the safe privacy of the back garden or the open attic.
They loved her, disfigured as she was, for the child despises
mere externals, and explores the heart of things to see whether it
be good or evil,--but they could never induce her to see strangers,
nor to join any gathering of people.
The children were grown and married now, and Lyddy was nearly
forty when she came into possession of house and lands and fortune;
forty, with twenty years of unexpended feeling pent within her.
Forty, that is rather old to be interesting, but age is a relative matter.
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