Desolate as she was, Madam Liberality would have hugged her grief if
she could have had her old consolation, and been happy in the
happiness of another. Darling never said she was not happy. It was
what she left out, not what she put into the long letters she sent
from India that cut Madam Liberality to the heart.
Darling's husband read all her letters, and he did not like the home
ones to be too tender--as if Darling's mother and sister pitied her.
And he read Darling's letters before they went away by the mail.
From this it came about that the sisters' letters were very
commonplace on the surface. And though Madam Liberality cried when
Darling wrote, "Have swallows built in the summer-house this year?
Have you put my old doll's chest of drawers back in its place since
the room was papered? What colour is the paper?"--the Major only said
that stuff like that was hardly worth the postage to England. And when
Madam Liberality wrote, "The clump of daffodils in your old bed was
enormous this spring. I have not touched it since you left. I made
Mother's birthday wreath out of the flowers in your bed and mine.
Jemima broke the slop-basin of the green and white tea-set to-day.
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