Long, long sat Hildegarde at the window, thinking
more deeply than she had ever thought in her life
before. Different passions held her young mind
in control while she sat motionless, gazing into the
darkness with wide-open eyes. First anger burned
high, flooding her cheek with hot blushes, making
her temples throb and her hands clench themselves in
a passion of resentment. But to this succeeded
a mood of deep sadness, of despair, as she thought;
though at fifteen one knows not, happily, the meaning
of despair.
Was this all true? Was she no better, no wiser,
than the silly girls of her set? She had always
felt herself so far above them mentally; they had
always so frankly acknowledged her supremacy; she knew
she was considered a “very superior girl:”
was it true that her only superiority lay in possessing
powers which she never chose to exert? And then
came the bitter thought: “What have I ever
done to prove myself wiser than they?” Alas
for the answer! Hilda hid her face in her hands,
and it was shame instead of anger that now sent the
crimson flush over her cheeks. Her mother despised
her! Her mother—perhaps her father
too! They loved her, of course; the tender love
had never failed, and would never fail. They
were proud of her too, in a way. And yet they
despised her; they must despise her! How could
they help it? Her mother, whose days were a ceaseless
round of work for others, without a thought of herself;
her father, active, energetic, business-like,—what
must her life seem to them? How was it that she
had never seen, never dreamed before, that she was
an idle, silly, frivolous girl? The revelation
came upon her with stunning force. These people
too, these coarse country people, despised her and
laughed at her! The thought was more than she
could bear. She sprang up, feeling as if she
were suffocating, and walked up and down the little
room with hurried and nervous steps. Then suddenly
there came into her mind one sentence of her mother’s
that Dame Hartley had repeated: “Hilda
has a really noble nature—” What was
the rest? Something about triumphing over the
faults and follies which lay outside. Had her
mother really said that? Did she believe, trust
in, her silly daughter? The girl stood still,
with clasped hands and bowed head. The tumult
within her seemed to die away, and in its place something
was trembling into life, the like of which Hilda Graham
had never known, never thought of, before; faint and
timid at first, but destined to gain strength and
to grow from that one moment,—a wish, a
hope, finally a resolve.
CHAPTER IV.
THE NEW HILDA.
Copyrights
Queen Hildegarde from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
