For that sort of religious excitement which does not quiet the evil passions, seems to inflame them, and Mrs.Anderson was not in any right sense sane.

And the prayer was addressed more to the frightened Julia than to God.

She would have been terribly afflicted had her petition been granted.
Julia would have run away from the admonition which followed the prayer, had it not been that Mrs.Anderson adroitly put it under cover of a religious exhortation.

She besought Julia to repent, and then, affecting to show her her sinfulness, she proceeded to abuse her.
Had Julia no temper?
Yes, she had doubtless a spice of her mother's anger without her meanness.

She would have resisted, but that from childhood she had felt paralyzed by the utter uselessness of all resistance.