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��Ethel Freeman.
��held none of the romance of youth, had none of its ficklenesss, brlo-hten- ing and making all her life pleasant. Ethel was their only child, the darling of their old age. The mother, es- pecially, loved her with an intensity of feeling she had never felt for any being beside. And it had certainly been an advantage, and a guaranty of mutual respect and confidence, that Ethel had not made her dehxd in so- ciety until after her mother had become desirably attached to her easy-chair and slippers, and weaned from fashionable follies and the love of the applause of the multitude. The unusually great disparity in the ages of mother and daughter had spared Mrs. Reed the humiliating dis- content of a brilliant woman become a little passee at the social successes and triumphs of a beautiful daughter. And who in society has not seen the pitiable and belittling struggle be- tween maternal gratification and un- natural envy of a daughter's bright youth and youth's delights? And yet the envy seems natural enough to some natures ; to those for whom the years have only rubbed off the bloom and beautiful illusions of life, instead of developing, ripening, and sweeten- ing the character. It is bitter hard for such a woman, once a belle and fed on flattery till it has become as her daily bread, to resign her belle- dom ; and that her successor, whom she must in one sense at least regard as a rival, comes into her kingdom by virtue of lineal descent, makes her abdication only a trifle less bit- ter.
Mrs., Reed had enjoyed Ethel's conquests as though they had been her own, — in fact, more than she ever
��did her own, for the reason that the whole interest of her girlhood had been absorbed in the ill-starred love affair whose memory had cast a shadow — invisible to others and dim to herself, 't is true, but still a shad- ow — over her after life. " I have had my day, Ethel," she would say ; " now I want to see you enjoy yours. Make the most of your heyday while it lasts, — your parties, your lovers, and of all the admiration and flattery, — only do not allow your head to be turned. One of these days you will lose it all, and be a thrifty housewife, a prudent wife, and an anxious moth- er. So have all the pleasure you can while you can."
The effect of this delectable but unorthodox advice had been to beget the closest confidence. Mrs. Reed had been cognizant of the beginning and progress of every one of Ethel's affaires du coeur, from the time of the chubby little boys in pinafores, who sacrificed molasses candy and peanuts on the altars of their loves, to that of the appearance of an ap- prehensible husband.
Against George Freeman she had steadily set her face from the first. She read him pretty well, though where a kindlier observer might have discovered pleasant possibilities and likely happy developments by read- ing between the lines, she was short- sighted, or saw nothing at all. Most people would have agreed with lier that Freeman was not the match for her daughter, but few would have considered him a wholly undesirable match. That he had been greatlv slandered every one believed. Be- sides being rich, he was handsome and agreeable in person, of pleasant
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