Her look was
austere and gloomy, and when she was not displeased with you, you
could only find it out by her silence. If there was cause for
complaint, real or imaginary, Christie was loud enough. She
loved my mother with the devoted attachment of a younger sister;
but she was as jealous of her favour to any one else as if she
had been the aged husband of a coquettish wife, and as severe in
her reprehensions as an abbess over her nuns. The command which
she exercised over her was that, I fear, of a strong and
determined over a feeble and more nervous disposition and though
it was used with rigour, yet, to the best of Christie Steele's
belief, she was urging her mistress to her best and most becoming
course, and would have died rather than have recommended any
other. The attachment of this woman was limited to the family of
Croftangry; for she had few relations, and a dissolute cousin,
whom late in life she had taken as a husband, had long left her a
widow.
To me she had ever a strong dislike. Even from my early
childhood she was jealous, strange as it may seem, of my interest
in my mother's affections.
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