hey were, they _must_ be evil; and were,
therefore, cast out into the outer darkness that existed beyond her
sacred Lares and Penates.

Good Heavens! how can pigmy people, atoms in the vast eternity of time,
thus narrow the great universe in which they are permitted to exist;
dwarfing it down, to the limit of their jaundiced vision, by the
application of their miserable measuring tape of "fashionable" feet and
"class" inches! How can they abase grand humanity to the level of their
social organon, affecting to control it with their arbitrary
absolutisms, their mammon deification, their mimic infallibility! What
creeping, crawling, wretched insects we all are, taken collectively;
and, of all of us, the blindest, the most insignificant, and most grub-
like, are, so-called men and women "of the world!"

Cold, heartless, in a general sense, and worldly as Mrs Clyde was, I
could easily have excused it in her and tried to like her, for, was she
not the mother of my darling, whom with all her faults she loved very
dearly--her affection being judiciously tempered by those considerations
paramount in the clique to which she belonged? But, Mrs Clyde did not
like _me_. She spurned every effort I essayed to make her my friend.

I saw this the first evening I passed in her house; and the impression I
then received never wore off.

Just as you can tell at sight whether certain persons attract or repel
you, through some unknown, nameless influence that you are unable to
fathom; so, in like degree, can you decide--that is, if you possess a
naturally sensitive mind--whether they are drawn towards yourself or
remain antipathetical. I know that _I_ can tell without asking them, if
people whom I see for the first time are likely to fancy me or not; and,
at all events, I had some inward monition which warned me that Mrs
Clyde, contrary to my earnest wish that she should regard me in a
friendly light, was not one of those amiable beings who would "cotton to
me," as the inhabitants of New England express the sentiment in their
pointed vernacular.

Perhaps you think me a very egotistical person, thus to dwell upon my
own ideas and feelings?

You must recollect, however, that I'm telling you this story myself, a
story in which I am both actively and intimately interested; and how,
unless I speak of my own self, are you going to learn anything about me?
I have nobody to describe me, so I _must_ be what you call
"egotistical."

Yes,