Explore "Transplanted" by Gertrude Atherton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Although Lee was happy, she had a hard fight with an attack of tearful repining. Surrounded all her life with demonstrative affection, each homecoming after a brief holiday an event of rejoicing and elaborate preparation, this chill casual entrance into a huge historic pile -- apparently uninhabited, and as homelike as a prison -- flooded her spirits with an icy rush. Cecil, who had been so close to her, seemed to have mounted to a niche in the grey staircase, and turned to stone. The domestic machinery appeared to run with the precision of an expensive eight-day clock. Were her future associates equally automatic? She remembered the inexcitable Mr. Maundrell, and shuddered. Perhaps even "Emmy" by this time was a mere machine, warranted to have hysterics at certain intervals. Surely a woman who would not sacrifice her routine to receive a petted stepson after two years' absence and a stranger in a strange land -- and so important an addition to the family as her daughter-in-law -- must be painfully systematised.
"However," thought Lee, curling herself down in the hope of a nap, "I can hold my own, that is one comfort. Thank Heaven, I have been brought up all my life to think myself somebody, and that I have plenty of money; it would be tragic if I were a timid, nervous, portionless little person."