But the hatred between Mr. Sim and Squire Morris had in no degree
abated. The former would have listened to his daughter's prayer, and
taken her twins and the nurse into his house; but his wife was less
susceptible to the influence of natural feeling, and even, while at
intervals she wept for poor Maria, she said--
"Take both of them, indeed! No, no! I loved our poor, thoughtless,
disobedient Maria, Mr. Sim, as well as you did, but I will not submit to
the Morrises. They have nothing to give the children; we have. But they
have the same, they have a greater right to provide for them than we
have. They shall take one of them, or none of them come into this
house." And again she broke into lamentations over the memory of Maria,
and, in the midst of her mourning, exclaimed--"But the child that we
take shall never be called Morris."
Mr. Sim wrote an answer to his son-in-law, as cold and formal as if it
had been a note added to an invoice; colder indeed, for it had no
equivalent to the poor, hackneyed phrase in all such, of "_esteemed
favours_." In it he stated that he would "bring up" one of the children,
provided that Squire Morris would undertake the charge of the other.
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