Not a pleasing nor a good face; yet intensely
pathetic because of its undisguised harassment.
Zerviah looked at it for a moment.
"She has never been much to either of us," he said to himself. "And yet,
when Malvina was alive, I used to think that she was hard on Bernardine.
I believe I said so once or twice. But Malvina had her own way of
looking at things. Well, that is over now."
He then, with characteristic speed, dismissed all thoughts which did not
relate to Roman History; and the remembrance of Malvina, his wife, and
Bernardine, his niece, took up an accustomed position in the background
of his mind.
Bernardine had suffered a cheerless childhood in which dolls and toys
took no leading part. She had no affection to bestow on any doll, nor
any woolly lamb, nor apparently on any human person; unless, perhaps,
there was the possibility of a friendly inclination towards Uncle
Zerviah, who would not have understood the value of any deeper feeling,
and did not therefore call the child cold-hearted and unresponsive, as
he might well have done.
This she certainly was, judged by the standard of other children; but
then no softening influences had been at work during her tenderest
years.
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