e as soon as
possible and begged her to allow me to stay at home the rest of the
week. To this she consented rather grudgingly, and I flew to my beloved
books and read till supper time. I was beginning at it again in the
evening when my mother rudely snatched the book from me saying, that it
was not good for young girls to read such stuff. I begged earnestly to
be allowed to finish just that one story and she finally said that
perhaps I might read it the next day. In the morning I could hardly curb
my impatience; it seemed as though my mother were inventing all sorts of
useless things for me to do, just to keep me from the book. But at last
I was free and, hastening to my room, was soon absorbed in another
world. I was suddenly recalled to this earth by a sharp blow on my head,
and the book was again snatched from me and thrown into the fire and
burned. It seemed that mother had been calling me and that I had been
too much absorbed to hear; that she had finally lost her temper and
decided to punish me.

"'Don't ever again read such trash as this,' she cried in a rage. 'Have
you any more of them?'

"'No,' I said, fearing to tell the truth, lest the rest of the books
meet the same fate.

"She then sent me on an errand. As I left the house I felt uneasy,
thinking that my lie might be discovered. The moment I returned, I saw
by the expression on my mother's face that my fears had been realised.
The storm broke at once.

"'Oh, what an unfortunate woman I am!' she cried, 'to be treated thus by
my own flesh and blood, by the child that I brought into the world with
so much pain and suffering. O, God, what have I done to deserve this? O
God, what have I done to be cursed with such a child?--so young, yet so
full of lies. What will become of her? Have I not always done my duty by
her and tried to raise her the best I knew how? Why did she not die when
a baby? I like a fool, toiled and moiled for her night and day and this
is my reward.'

"I had heard these expressions often, for my mother was a hysterical
woman in whom the slightest thing would cause the most violent emotions
which demanded relief in such lamentations. And yet, frequent as they
were, they never failed to arouse in me feelings of shame and
rage--shame that I had caused my mother suffering, and rage that she
reproached herself for having brought me into the world. That expression
of hers never failed to make me wish that I had never been born--born
into thi