She knew that she would have been brilliant
and fascinating, if she had not been repressed; with all her faults,
there was a more feminine yieldingness about her, than about
herself. There was an affectionate pathos in her voice, a tender
grace in her air, when she asked to sympathize in her sorrow. Ann
felt for the first time fully, that she was one to love, and be
beloved in the social circle. She felt that she had been most
ungenerous to absorb all the attention of her friends, instead of
bringing forward the reserved, sensitive Christine. The sisters had
never been much together; they had never made confidants of each
other;--Ann was the eldest, and all in all with her parents, while
Christine was a sort of appendage. Ann felt the unintentional
reproach conveyed in her last words; she marked how quickly she
stopped, and seemed to retire within herself again; she scanned her
face closely, and generous feelings triumphed.
"Dear Christine!" she said in a low voice, passing her arm around
her. "We have never been to each other what sisters ought to be. I
have been too thoughtless and careless; I have not remembered as I
should have done, that you returned from school, a stranger to the
majority of our friends and acquaintances.
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