"Is there any one you like better?" asked the Princess sharply. "Are
you in love with any one else?"
"No! But--"
"I had never seen your father when our marriage was arranged," the
Princess observed.
"And you were very unhappy together," Sabina answered promptly. "You
always say so."
"Oh, unhappy? I am not so sure, now. Certainly Hot nearly so miserable
as half the people I know. After all, what is happiness, child? Doing
what you please, is it not?"
Sabina had not thought of this definition, and she laughed, without
accepting it. In one way, everything looked suddenly bright and
cheerful, since her mother had believed her story, and she knew that
she was not to go back to the Baroness, who had not believed her at
all, and had called her bad names.
"And I almost always did as I pleased," the Princess continued, after
a moment's reflection. "The only trouble was that your dear father did
not always like what I did. He was a very religious man. That was what
ruined us. He gave half his income to charities and then scolded me
because I could not live on the other half. Besides, he turned the Ten
Commandments into a hundred. It was a perfect multiplication, table of
things one was not to do."
Poor Sabina's recollections of her father had nothing of affection in
them, and she did not feel called upon to defend his memory.
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