But well could Lena remember
how in the nursery days from which she and Percy had but so recently
escaped, he would hide, by every possible device, his own misdoings,
even to the very verge of suffering others to be blamed for them.
Hannah would even then strive to shield him from detection and
punishment at his parents' hands, thus fostering his weakness and
moral cowardice. With over-severity on the one hand, and
over-indulgence on the other, what wonder was it that Percy's faults
had grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength?
It cannot be said that Lena put all this into words, even to herself:
but such thoughts were there, or those very much like them. She was
given to reasoning and pondering over things in the recesses of her
own mind, and she was uncommonly clear-sighted for a girl of her age.
Probably the child was not the happier for that.
To Maggie and Bessie, in their joyous lives, full of the tenderness
and confidence and sympathy which existed between them and their
parents, such ideas would never have come, even while they wondered
at and pitied the utter lack in Lena's existence of all that made the
happiness of theirs.
And another trouble, perhaps now the greatest which weighed upon
Lena's mind, was the knowledge that their faithful old nurse had
sacrificed her long-cherished gold, with its particular purpose, to
the rescue of Percy from his dilemma. For, after hearing Miss
Trevor's story, Lena could not--did not doubt that this was so.
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