Lillian StewartI was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins,Born in a cottage near the grist-mill,Reared in the mansion there on the hill,With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate.How proud my mother was of the mansionHow proud of father’s rise in the world!And how my father loved and watched us,And guarded our happiness.But I believe the house was a curse,For father’s fortune was little beside it;And when my husband found he had marriedA girl who was really poor,He taunted me with the spires,And called the house a fraud on the world,A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopesOf a dowry not to be had;And a man while selling his voteShould get enough from the people’s betrayalTo wall the whole of his family in.He vexed my life till I went back homeAnd lived like an old maid till I died,Keeping house for father.
I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins,Born in a cottage near the grist-mill,Reared in the mansion there on the hill,With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate.How proud my mother was of the mansionHow proud of father’s rise in the world!And how my father loved and watched us,And guarded our happiness.But I believe the house was a curse,For father’s fortune was little beside it;And when my husband found he had marriedA girl who was really poor,He taunted me with the spires,And called the house a fraud on the world,A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopesOf a dowry not to be had;And a man while selling his voteShould get enough from the people’s betrayalTo wall the whole of his family in.He vexed my life till I went back homeAnd lived like an old maid till I died,Keeping house for father.