Duncan's mother was to make her home with you after your return from
abroad.
I had met Mrs. Duncan, and I knew her type all too well. Alfred is her
only child, and she adores him, naturally, but it is adoration so
mingled with selfishness and tyranny that it is incapable of considering
the welfare of its object.
Mrs. Duncan was always jealous of any happiness which came to her son
through another source than herself. That type of mother love is to be
encountered every day, and that type of mother believes herself to be
the most devoted creature on earth; while the fact is, she sits for ever
in the boudoir of her mentality, gazing at her own reflection. She loves
her children because they also reflect herself, and is incapable of
unselfish pleasure in their happiness apart from her.
You will remember I urged you to wait until you could have a home,
however humble, alone with your husband, and even at the cost of that
most undesirable condition, a long engagement.
But you assured me with much spirit that you had every confidence in
your power to win Mrs.
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