Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/268

 little of what folks was sayin'. But there! There's no need o' cryin' over spilt milk. All I've got to say is, there ain't no sech excuse for Mary Anne, and I declare for 't, I sometimes feel's though I should like to shake her."

Now neither the many who praised, nor yet the one who censured, really had the clue to the girl's character. Old Lady Pratt, with all her shrewdness, supposed, as the rest of the world did, that Mary Anne was inherently and spontaneously unselfish. That when she gave up pleasures that others might enjoy them, when she sacrificed her own inclinations that she might do a service for some one else, it was because of a quality in her nature different from anything in her companions.

The truth was, however, that Mary Anne's unselfishness was a refuge, to which she instinctively had resort, impelled thereto by her two ruling characteristics—self-distrust and a craving for approbation.

Mary Anne was the eldest child of James Spencer, a man of peremptory manners, though of a really yielding disposition. His other children had never found any difficulty in "getting round Father." It was only his eldest daughter who stood in awe of him. This may have been one reason why she was not a favorite with her father. From the time when she was a little child, his commands and admonitions had frightened her. He had a way of coming to the foot