It was very hard
that this little interval of life, these stray gleams of gladness should
be denied to the poor old creature, at the behest of James Steadman.
Mary would have felt less angrily upon the subject had she believed in
Steadman's supreme carefulness of her own safety; but in this she did
not believe. She looked upon the house-steward's prudence as a
hypocritical pretence, an affectation of fidelity and wisdom, by which
he contrived to gratify the evil tendencies of his own hard and cruel
nature. For some reasons of his own, perhaps constrained thereto by
necessity, he had given the old man an asylum for his age and infirmity:
but while thus giving him shelter he considered him a burden, and from
mere perversity of mind refused him all such consolations as were
possible to his afflicted state, mewed him up as a prisoner, cut him off
from the companionship of his fellow-men.
Two years ago, before Mary emerged from her Tomboyhood, she would have
thought very little of letting herself out of the loft window and
clambering down the side of the stable, which was well furnished with
those projections in the way of gutters, drain-pipes, and century-old
ivy, which make such a descent easy.
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