She shrank from the very idea of
confiding in her garrulous, superficial mother. She felt that her
cousin detested as well as despised her. The flattered girl, who
a little before thought the world was at her feet, now felt friendless
and alone, scarcely tolerated by her own family, and scorned by
others.
Of course she exaggerated the evil of her lot. The young an
inexperienced are ever prone to look, for the time, on the earlier
misfortunes of their lives as irretrievable. In after years they
may smile at their causeless despair; but the world is full of
tragedies that to the wise and sober minded had slight cause.
Ida's troubles, however, were scarcely slight, and she, above all
others, was the least fitted to bear trouble and thwarting. To be
refused anything would be a new and disagreeable experience, but
to be denied that which her heart craved supremely, tended to call
out all the passionate recklessness of her ungoverned, undisciplined
nature. The child from whom something is taken, will often cast
away in anger all that is offered in its place; and in like hasty
folly many a man and woman, to their eternal regret, have thrown
away life itself.
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