"Inbred-Sin," I was certain,
looked just like him; and the two, strangely blended in one
hideous presence, were the worst nightmare of my dreams. There
was too much reality about that "Inbreed-Sin." I felt that I was
acquainted with him. He was the hateful hero of the little
allegory, as Satan is of "Paradise Lost."
I liked lessons that came to me through fables and fairy tales,
although, in reading Aesop, I invariably skipped the "moral"
pinned on at the end, and made one for myself, or else did
without.
Mrs. Lydia Maria Child's story of "The Immortal Fountain," in the
"Girl's Own Book,"--which it was the joy of my heart to read,
although it preached a searching sermon to me,--I applied in the
same way that I did the "Infant's Progress." I thought of Lida as
the gentle, unselfish Rose, and myself as the ugly Marion. She
was patient and obliging, and I felt that I was the reverse. She
was considered pretty, and I knew that I was the reverse of that,
too. I wondered if Lida really had bathed in the Immortal
Fountain, and oh, how I wished I could find the way there! But I
feared that trying to do so would be of no use; the fairies would
cross their wands to keep me back, and their wings would darken
at my approach.
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