"
Esther pushed the paper from her and walked out of the room in a tumult of
grief and humiliation. Woodview and all belonging to it had grown
unbearable, and heedless to what complaint the cook might make against her
she ran upstairs and shut herself into her room. She asked why they should
take pleasure in torturing her. It was not her fault if she did not know
how to read. There were the books she loved for her mother's sake, the
books that had brought such disgrace upon her. Even the names she could
not read, and the shame of her ignorance lay upon her heavier than a
weight of lead. "Peter Parley's Annual," "Sunny Memories of Foreign
Lands," "Children of the Abbey," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," Lamb's "Tales of
Shakespeare's Plays," a Cooking Book, "Roda's Mission of Love," the Holy
Bible and the Common Prayer Book.
She turned them over, wondering what were the mysteries that this print
held from her. It was to her mysterious as the stars.
Esther Waters came from Barnstaple. She had been brought up in the
strictness of the Plymouth Brethren, and her earliest memories were of
prayers, of narrow, peaceful family life. This early life had lasted till
she was ten years old. Then her father died. He had been a house-painter,
but in early youth he had been led into intemperance by some wild
companions.
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