Angels and Women (1924)

such times father is stern and sad, Aldethsighs, they chide my youthful gayety, andI am oppressed with gloom.These moods of my parents are mysterious,connected, I imagine, with the remembranceof their former life, but I havenever presumed to question them. Today Iaccidentally received an intimation confirmingthis supposition, but still I am perplexed.While tying the vines beneath my mother’swindow, I heard her say (forgetting perhaps,that I was near)--"This is Aloma’s birthday; how beautifulshe is growing 1"I was greatly surprised, but still more sowhen my father groaned and answered:"Would to God she were deformed I Woman,why art thou made so fair l O fatal, fatalgift of beauty l but for it how lovely andpure thou art! The earth would not nowbe the theatre of unimaginable sin, norwould Satanas 1 and his wicked peers control1 See Appendix, Note 3.