“Oh, dear me! I can only read fables.”
“But try, my darling: come, open your paper.”
She unfolded the paper, and began to spell with her finger, “S E
N--sen,--T E N C E--tence,--_Sentence_.” I snatched it from her hands.
It was my own sentence of death she was reading to me!
Her nurse had bought the paper for a penny. To me it had cost more.
No words can convey what I felt; my violence had alarmed the child, who
was ready to cry.