Owing to the fact that Mabel had come as completely under the
hypnotic influence of the Baroness as the first Mrs Lawrence had been
during her lifetime, Preston was subjected to a great deal more of
her persecutions than would otherwise have been possible. Mabel was
never happier than when enjoying the companionship of her new mother;
a condition of things which pleased the Judge as much as it made his
son-in-law miserable.
With a malicious adroitness possible only to such a woman as the
second Mrs Lawrence, she endeared herself to Mrs Cheney, by a
thousand flattering and caressing ways, and by a constant exhibition
of sympathy, which to a weak and selfish nature is as pleasing as it
is distasteful to the proud and strong. And by this inexhaustible
flow of sympathetic feeling, she caused the wife to drift farther and
farther away from her husband's influence, and to accuse him of all
manner of shortcomings and faults which had not suggested themselves
to her own mind.
Mabel had not given or demanded a devoted love when she married
Preston Cheney. She was quite satisfied to bear his name, and do the
honours of his house, and to be let alone as much as possible. It
was the name, not the estate, of wifehood she desired; and motherhood
she had accepted with reluctance and distaste.
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