"
"Yes, Margaret, your mother," said Rose. "I never called her by that
name, but I respect her for your sake. She was my father's pet, so
it has been said, for he was comparatively old, and she his young
girl-wife."
"Where did you get this?" Maggie asked; and, coloring crimson, Rose
replied, "We have always had her portrait, but grandmother, who was
very old and foolishly proud about some things, was offended at our
father's last marriage, and when after his death the portraits were
brought here, she--Forgive her, Maggie--she did not know you, or she
would not have done it--"
"I know," interrupted Maggie. "She despised this Hester Warren, and
consigned her portrait to some spot from which you have brought it and
had this taken from it."
"Not despised her!" cried Rose, in great distress, as she saw a dark
expression stealing over the face of Maggie, in whose heart a chord of
sympathy had been struck when she thought of her mother banished from
her father's side. "Grandma could not despise her," continued Rose;
"she was so good, so beautiful."
"Yes, she was beautiful," murmured Maggie, gazing earnestly upon the
fair, round face, the soft, black eyes, and raven hair of her who for
years had slept beneath the shadow of the Hillsdale woods. "Oh, I wish
I were dead like her!" she exclaimed at last, closing the ambrotype
and laying it upon the table. "I wish I was lying in that little grave
in the place of her who should have borne my name, and been what I
once was;" and bowing her face upon her hands she wept bitterly, while
Rose tried in vain to comfort her.
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