"A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?"
"I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only
sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's
disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of
her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby;
though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for
its maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it --
a sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all
night long -- not screaming heartily like any other child, but
whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it
and notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he
ever noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children
friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it,
and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his
last illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but
an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature.
I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a
workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all
resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like
my brothers -- he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease
tormenting me with letters for money? I have no more money to give
him: we are getting poor. I must send away half the servants and
shut up part of the house; or let it off. I can never submit to
do that -- yet how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my income goes
in paying the interest of mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and
always loses -- poor boy! He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk
and degraded -- his look is frightful -- I feel ashamed for him
when I see him."
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