I think of my youth with a sick shudder; I think of my childhood with horror, and I almost thank Heaven that the tyrant is dead who blighted my life." Now the real woman was breaking through the mask; her face flushed; her eyes shone.
"I often talk to Lance about it," she said, "this terrible childhood of mine.

I was punished for the least offence.

I never heard a word of pity or affection.

I never saw a look of anything but hate on my grandmother's face.

No one was ever pitiful to me; fierce words, fierce blows, complaints of the burden I was; that was all my mother's mother ever gave to me.