The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-01-14

stinctvely, so, instinctively, she craves revenge.
 Obstinacy is a prominent characteristic in Mrs Dombey as it is in MT. Dombey Dickens draws two kinds of obstinacy i'm these natures that oppose each other. Obstinaey in MT Dombey is a petty thing grown colossal It makes him intolerably and intolerantly proud, bGoted and stu- pid. Mrs Dombey's obstnacy is strong thing springing from q strong nature. It expends itself not in stubbornness but aa fuel for her fire of passion. Instead of narrowing her. it breaks for her all conventional bounds and makes her reck- less of every consequence.
 yVTHEN Edith skewton was born A/ her mothers was 40 years old, " and beautiful still. Tn her earl fer youth Mrs. Skewton had been the toast of the day when men were as free with the names of women as they were with the bottle. and when a fashionable buck had not the least objection to hear ing his sweetheart's name shouted by a chorus of other bucks, all drunk.
 Having no possession, worldly or spirit ual except beauty, she devoted herself 10 it entirely, and especially so after q 
 patra. She lived up to her picture quite consistently till her husband took the lib- erty of dying and leaving her with a most un-Cleopatra-lik income, just enough to support genteel semi-starvation.
 Mrs. Skewton had lots of blood She was own aunt to Lord Feenix and kin to innumerable other noble familes but as. unhappy. all of them were impov- crished. all that blood did for her was to give her a social position that she could not afford. and 10 give her dis tinguished connections who could not af- ford the connection.
 She made honest and even desperate endeavors to remain Cleopatra, but bucks with money were shy about marrying a Cleopatra who was more than 40 and could not well be expected to grow young .esa By the time her daughter had passed infancy. Mrs. swekton perceived that her only hope lay in the girl.
 Edith was growing into a beauty that promised 10 be far greater than Cleo patra's had been. Edith had mind as well as lool1s but Cleopatra, having no mind herself, could not be expected to
 
 patra, whose own heart was merely q vessel for pumping blood and thus doing valuable service for her complexion, hard ly could suspect that her daughter had n more elaborate one.
 The girls nature was a strong, pas sionate one. It was left unrestrained, and grew steadily into something that set it's mark on her beauty and deepened her dark, proud eyes. 1t was left unguded and il beat itself blind Pride grew in her to something rebelllous. As she be came older and understood the calculat- ing avarice, the humliating expedients. the false pretensions in which they lived that pride struck it's heaviest blows against herself It became a contempt uous pride and insolent, such as might sit on an angry queen.
 Though her nature soon became far stronger than her mothers. her mother held her fast Long before it had grown she had fettered her with the bonds of habit. From her childhood she had heard only the one thing; the necessity of marrying well. She had learned only the one thing: the way to do it.
 For this she had been taught to play the harp and move regally through a room. For this she had been taught to sketch and to wield fan. For this she had learned all she knew of art, and it. erature, and history. Strong and willful and proud as she was, blood and poverty tied her fast.
 The only escape that she knew was the escape that had been held before her since her youth. Without objection she permitted her mother to marry her to q man who was to inherit q vast estate Cleopatra felt virtuously that her life work was done, and prepared to rest beautifully in the golden barge to be provided by her son-in-law; but that gen tleman played the unexpected (and no doubt involuntary joke on her of dying before his inheritance came to him.
 In her two years of married life, Edith had learned many things. She came out of it with great scorn for herself. such scorn as can grow only in a proud woman who knows herself for what she is and yet cannot, or will not make her life over. She returned to her moth CT, pennless as she had gone, and with tllt duueu DllleiItSS or Knowing that all their world was laughing at them both.
 Her scorn only enhanced her beauty. Admirers crowded around her, With naughty indifference she let them admire her. Haughtily she stood still to be ap- praised. She let her mother use vile and stratagem, and looked on. too con tcmptuously proud even to pretend ig- norance. The years went by, and Edith was Mrs. Granger still.
 Cleopatra grew antique. Cleopatra. maid might more appropriately have beer certain bony figure with a scythe for al nights, after she had taken Cleopatra apart to make her ready for bed. ther, was no roseate complexion left, ther, was no hair left, there were no padding left and all that was left of Mrs. Skew ton was an old woman whose head trem bled bit on its neck, and whose yer, voice seemed to have been taken of and replaced by petulant seolding qua yer.