her.

"What do you suppose I give you all those jewels and fine clothes for,
to say nothing of the money you waste in keeping up the house?" he
would ask brutally.

Jane made no answer; silence was her only shield, but her heart burned
within her. It is probable, notwithstanding her somewhat exaggerated
ideas of duty and wifely obedience, that she would have plucked up her
courage and left him, even if she must earn her own living as a
sempstress, had it not been for one circumstance. That circumstance
was the arrival in the world of her daughter, Isobel. In some ways
this event did not add to her happiness, if that can be added to which
does not exist, for the reason that her husband never forgave her
because this child, her only one, was not a boy. Nor did he lose any
opportunity of telling her this to her face, as though the matter were
one over which she had control. In others, however, for the first time
in her battered little life, she drank deep of the cup of joy. She
loved that infant, and from the first it loved her and her only, while
to the father it was indifferent, and at times antagonistic.

From the cradle Isobel showed herself to be an individual of
character. Even as a little girl she knew what she wanted and formed
her own opinions quite independently of those of others. Moreover, in
a certain way she was a good-looking child, but of a stamp totally
different from that of either of her parents. Her eyes were not
restless and prominent, like her father's, or dark and plaintive, like
her mother's, but large, grey and steady, with long curved lashes. In
fact, they were fine, but it was her only beauty, since the brow above
them was almost too pronounced for that of a woman, the mouth was a