The real affliction in life is to see your children not take after you! That is the most dreadful calamity of all. You toil and you slave to bring them up with high notions, to teach them to look down upon whatever is low and mean, to avoid their poor relations, and whatever disgraces them, and you find, the whole time, 'tis looking back they are to their humble origin, and fancying that they were happier, for no other reason than because they were lower!
It is, maybe, the McCarthy blood in me, but I feel as if the higher I went the lighter I grew; and so it is, I 'm sure, with Mary Anne. I know, from her face across the room, whether she's dancing with a "prince," or only "a gentleman from the United States"! And even in the matter of looks it makes the greatest difference in her. In the one case her eyes sparkle, her head is thrown back, her cheek glows with animation; while in the other she seems half asleep, dances out of time, and probably answers out of place.
From all these facts, I gather, Molly, that there's nothing so elevating to the mind as moving in a rank above your own; and I'm sure I don't forgive myself when I keep company with my equals. I believe James has less of the Dodd and more of the M'Carthy in him than the girls. He takes to the aristocracy so naturally,--calls them by their names, and makes free with them in a way that is really beautiful; and they call him "Jim," or some of them say "Jeemes," just as familiar as himself. I suppose it's no use repining, but I often feel, Molly, that if it was the Lord's will that I was to be left a widow, I 'd see my children high in the world before long.
This reminds me of K. I., and here's his letter for you. I copy it word for word, without note or comma:--
"Dear Jemi,--We are waiting here for the Princess, who has not yet arrived, but is expected to-day or to-morrow at furthest You will be sorry to hear that I was ill and confined for more than a week to my bed at Ems." Will I, indeed? "It was a kind of low fever." I read it a love fever, Molly, when I saw it first "But I am now much better." You never were worse in your life, you old hypocrite, thinks I. "And am able to take a little exercise on horseback.