Rachel's Discipline

"Thought is free, as sages tells us--
Free to rove, and free to soar;
But affection lives in bondage,
That enthrals her more and more."
JEAN INGELOW.

An old friend lived in the neighbourhood who remembered Fanny's father,
and was very anxious to see her again, though not able to leave the
house. So the first day that it was fine enough for Mrs. Curtis to
venture out, she undertook to convey Fanny to call upon her, and was off
with a wonderfully moderate allowance of children, only the two youngest
boys outside with their maid. This drive brought more to light about
Fanny's past way of life and feelings than had ever yet appeared.
Rachel had never elicited nearly so much as seemed to have come forth
spontaneously to the aunt, who had never in old times been Fanny's
confidante.

Fanny's life had been almost a prolonged childhood. From the moment of
her marriage with the kind old General, he and her mother had conspired
to make much of her; all the more that she was almost constantly
disabled by her state of health, and was kept additionally languid
and helpless by the effects of climate. Her mother had managed her
household, and she had absolutely had no care, no duty at all but to be
affectionate and grateful, and to be pretty and gracious at the dinner
parties. Even in her mother's short and sudden illness, the one thought
of both the patient and the General had been to spare Fanny, and she had
been scarcely made aware of the danger, and not allowed to witness the
suffering. The chivalrous old man who had taken on himself the charge of
her, still regarded the young mother of his children as almost as much
of a baby herself, and devoted himself all the more to sparing her
trouble, and preventing her from feeling more thrown upon her by her
mother's death.