Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/102

96 taste for teaching would soon wear itself out—so it did: but not so her taste for tormenting. She liked to talk of the sacrifice she made of her mornings—of her devotion to Mr. Dalton's children—and she also liked complaining of Ellen's stupidity and obstinacy. She liked, even better than all, the petty authority which she exercised; and the unfortunate child was kept for hours in a painful and constrained attitude, poring over lessons quite beyond her powers of comprehension, harrassed by perpetual reproof, and encouraged by no prospect of praise or success. But all these troubles were light when weighed in the balance against the one paramount over all.

Ellen pined for her sister—she could find no pleasure in any of the employments that they were wont to pursue together. True, she went every morning, that the weather at all permitted, to feed their favourite deer, but it was a task never fulfilled without tears: she took no pleasure in any of their former amusements—a beautiful flower only drew from her the exclamation of,