The things we do!

In return, she was not unwilling to
impart to the good Hausfrau, and her troop of little ones and
retainers, many details concerning her town life; and might
sometimes be found, perched on the kitchen table, relating
long histories to an admiring audience, in which the blue silk
frocks and tall partners made no small figure, one may be
sure.
It was a golden childhood. Even in after years, when, reading
the history of these early days in a new light, she suffered a
pang for almost every pleasure she had then enjoyed, even then
Madelon maintained that her childhood had been one of
unclouded happiness, such as few children know. The sudden
changes of fortune, from splendour to poverty of the shabbiest
description, the reckless, dishonest expenditure, and the
endless debts consequent on it; the means--doubtful to say the
least of them--employed by M. Linders for procuring money; the
sense of alienation from all that is best, and noblest, and
truest in life;--all these, which had gone far to make up the
sum of her mother's misery, affected our Madelon hardly at
all.


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