We've got
to work, that's all, and to earn our living like other women do.'
Her sister stared incredulously.
'You mean to say he's stopped sending money?'
'I have refused to take it.'
'You've done _what_? Well, of all the--!' Comparisons failed her.
'And I've got to take these children back again into a hole like the
last? Not me! You do as you like; I suppose you know your own
business. But if he doesn't send the money as usual, I'll find some
way to make him, see if I don't! You're off your head, I think.'
Emma had anticipated this, and was prepared to bear the brunt of her
sister's anger. Kate was not originally blessed with much sweetness
of disposition, and an unhappy marriage had made her into a sour,
nagging woman. But, in spite of her wretched temper and the low
moral tone induced during her years of matrimony, she was not
evil-natured, and her chief safeguard was affection for her sister
Emma. This seldom declared itself, for she was of those unhappily
constituted people who find nothing so hard as to betray the
tenderness of which they are capable, and, as often as not, are
driven by a miserable perversity to words and actions which seem
quite inconsistent with such feeling. For Jane she had cared far
less than for Emma, yet her grief at Jane's death was more than
could be gathered from her demeanour.
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