I am not
like them. I do not even resemble them in features. And, if I
belonged to them, would they not treat me with more
consideration and less disipline? Who, in the Familey, has my
noze?
It is all well enough for Hannah to observe that I was a
pretty baby with fat cheaks. May not Hannah herself, for some
hiden reason, have brought me here, taking away the real I to
perhaps languish unseen and "waste my sweetness on the dessert
air"? But that way lies madness. Life must be made the best of
as it is, and not as it might be or indeed ought to be.
Father promised before he left that I was not to be
scolded, as I felt far from well, and was drinking water about
every minute.
"I just want to lie here and think about things," I said,
when he was going. "I seem to have so many thoughts. And father-
---"
"Yes, chicken."
"If I need any help to carry out a plan I have, will you
give it to me, or will I have to go to totle strangers?"
"Good gracious, Bab!" he exclaimed. "Come to me, of
course."
"And you'll do what you're told?"
He looked out into the hall to see if mother was near.
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