Page 19 PART I - CHAPTER IIThere was none like her in my childhood. She
understood many things and moved with an habitual, quiet dignity
which kept the concubines and their children all fearful in her
presence. But the servants disliked while they admired her. I
used to hear them grumbling because they could not so much as
steal the fragments in the kitchen without her discerning the
matter. Yet she never reproved them loudly as the concubines did
when they were angry. When my mother saw that which did not please
her, few words dropped from her lips; but those words were pointed
with scorn, and they fell upon the guilty one like sharp ice upon
the flesh. |
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