And, we've suddenly transitioned to this:

"The darling!" he murmured to himself; "she is lovely as an angel, and she is _mine_, mine only, mine own precious one; and loves me with her whole soul. Ah! how can I ever find it in my heart to be stern to her? Ah! if _I_ were but _half_ as good and pure as she is, I should be a better man than I am." And he heaved a deep sigh.

Hil, you're going to give us all nightmares.

ewww

Creepy!

She spent the two hours gazing at him, thinking about how handsome he is and despairing that he would never love her, would never take her upon his knee and caress her. Then he sends her to bed. She stands, waiting for a kiss goodnight, and he says that he won't kiss her, because she'd been naughty

does this sound like the beginning of incest porn to anyone else?

well, yeah. Like I said ...eww.....

She got in trouble with her grandparents because she wouldn't tell her aunt (who's actually two years younger than her) a fairy tale on a Sunday. She'd be happy to tell her a Bible story, but not a fairy tale. Her grandparents tell her father what happened, and he says she didn't do anything wrong in not telling a story when a little girl demanded it, but she did do wrong in talking back to her grandfather during the argument about it.

Then he says that while it's perfectly fine for her to put her strict religious rules above what other people tell her to do, he will not allow her to follow her religious rules if it contradicts what he tells her to do, because he must have complete obedience from her.

Well, pop lit could be incredibly overwrought in that era. Lots of emoting and caressing and suffering. Think of Little Lord Fauntleroy, calling his mother "Dearest." That's why Louisa May Alcott is so wonderful and refreshing.

Well, pop lit could be incredibly overwrought in that era. Lots of emoting and caressing and suffering. Think of Little Lord Fauntleroy, calling his mother "Dearest." That's why Louisa May Alcott is so wonderful and refreshing.

I've read Little Lord Fauntleroy. It doesn't come anywhere close to this.

But there there are a lot of overly moral, syrupy disturbing books from that era--it's just that most of them have thankfully sunk into obscurity. I have a bound copy of a year's worth of a magazine called the "Girl's Own" from the late 1800's, and many of the stories are about girls suffering to be good and getting horribly punished for being "bad." The definition of bad seemed to be headstrong and willful and ever getting angry. They have to learn to be gentle and yielding so they could be the moral light of the home and have men love them.

This book seems like it's more overtly Old Testament than a lot of them, but the underlying message and the intense emotion is the same.