Page:Orange Grove.djvu/104

 head felt so bad. She was nervous, and he obstinate, two very uncongenial qualities.

In one particular they agreed,—the tenets of Calvinism. Here they met at the same altar, and bowed before the same God. Grace was regularly said at every meal, the morning and evening devotions punctiliously observed.

She was more self-righteous than he, and consequently more exacting. Unmindful of her own faults, she held others to the most rigid standard of profession and morality. Even towards woman, who, through the pressure of want or any other cause yielded to temptation, she was severe and inexorable in her judgment, tolerating no palliation of the act from whatever source it came. Milly could scarcely have found a more uncongenial home. Her boundless charity sought to exonerate every one from the charge of being as bad as appearances indicated, a point upon which they differed so widely as to provoke an estrangement of feeling whenever the subject was mentioned. Her devotional feelings could easily have been moulded to any creed embodied in a loving spirit, and had her aunt manifested the least interest in her happiness, she would have twined around her with all the intensity of an ardent nature craving something to love. As it was, an insuperable barrier existed between them which it was impossible to remove. Milly was so sensitive, that every unkind word forced back the natural flow of affection which would otherwise have been manifested under these circumstances, and might possibly have disarmed some of her aunt's coldness and harshness.