Explore "Sweet Content" by Mary Louisa Molesworth on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was a good thing for Anna's own comfort that afternoon that she was not of a very observant nature, otherwise she would certainly not have found me either a pleasant or courteous companion. I was obliged to obey papa, and I dared not be positively rude to her, but beyond this I was determined not to go; the very feeling of having been forced to give in made me the more bitter and the more inclined to resent my grievances on her, the innocent cause of them. But Anna had never been accustomed to overmuch civility from me; even as quite little children I had treated her as if it did not matter _how_ she was treated. And she only smiled placidly at my vagaries, and doubtless said to herself that "poor little Connie was very spoilt."
We had seen each other very rarely of late, and then generally with the Whytes, so I don't think it struck Anna as at all strange that I walked on beside her in grim silence, scarcely even condescending to notice her few amiable commonplace remarks. Poor child! her head was always full of home cares; I think it must have been a treat to her even to walk along quietly without a lot of "little ones" tugging at her skirt.