She received Lindau at first with robust benevolence, and the high resolve not to let any of his little peculiarities alienate her from a sense of his claim upon her sympathy and gratitude, not only as a man who had been so generously fond of her husband in his youth, but a hero who had suffered for her country.

Her theory was that his mutilation must not be ignored, but must be kept in mind as a monument of his sacrifice, and she fortified Bella with this conception, so that the child bravely sat next his maimed arm at table and helped him to dishes he could not reach, and cut up his meat for him.

As for Mrs.
March herself, the thought of his mutilation made her a little faint; she was not without a bewildered resentment of its presence as a sort of oppression.

She did not like his drinking so much of March's beer, either; it was no harm, but it was somehow unworthy, out of character with a hero of the war.

But what she really could not reconcile herself to was the violence of Lindau's sentiments concerning the whole political and social fabric.