I am the mother that bore you, and your sorrow is my agony; and if you don't hate her, i do' Then, mother, you make me love her more. She is unjustly treated by you, and I must make the balance even.

A wise parent humors the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.

Mr Thornton would rather have heard that she was suffering the natural sorrow. In the first place, there was selfishness enough in him to have taken pleasure in the idea that his great love might come in to comfort and console her; much the same kind of strange passionate pleasure which comes stinging through a mother's heart, when her drooping infant nestles close to her, and is dependent upon her for everything.

He could not - say rather, he would not - deny himself the chance of the pleasure of seeing Margaret. He had no end in this but the present gratification.

I could wish there were a God, if it were only to ask him to bless thee.

It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings and contumelies, compared to the poverty that crept round and clipped the anticipation of the future down to sordid fact, and life without an atmosphere of either hope or fear.

I dare not hope. I never was fainthearted before; but I cannot believe such a creature cares for me.