"How am I to control my thoughts? Do you think, mamma, that after I had owned to you that I loved a man,--after I had owned it to him and, worst of all, to myself,--I could have myself separated from him, and then not think about it? It is a cloud upon everything. It is as though I had lost my eyesight and my speech. It is as it would be to you if Felix were to die. It crushes me."
There was an accusation in this allusion to her brother which the mother felt,--as she was intended to feel it,--but to which she could make no reply. It accused her of being too much concerned for her son to feel any real affection for her daughter. "You are ignorant of the world, Hetta," she said.
"I am having a lesson in it now, at any rate."

"How am I to control my thoughts? Do you think, mamma, that after I had owned that I loved a man, I could be separated from him, and then not think about it? It is as though I had lost my eyesight and my speech. It is as it would be to you if Felix were to die. It crushes me."
There was an accusation in this allusion to her brother which the mother felt, but to which she could make no reply. It accused her of being more concerned for her son than her daughter.
"You are ignorant of the world, Hetta," she said.
"I am having a lesson in it now, at any rate."
