How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The child was provided for, thanks to a crafty godmother, a defunct aunt of Beale's, who had left her something in such a manner that the parents could appropriate only the income. (Preface.6)
There is a difference between being provided for and being taken care of. Maisie has been left some cash, but that is only a band-aid on the gaping wound produced by being effectively abandoned by her parents.
Quote #2
She was abandoned to her fate. (Preface.6).
There you have it, folks, plain and simple in Maisie's preface: this heroine's on her own.
Quote #3
Her first term was with her father, who spared her only in not letting her have the wild letters addressed to her by her mother: he confined himself to holding them up at her and shaking them, while he showed his teeth, and then amusing her by the way he chucked them, across the room, bang into the fire. (I.2)
This quote is so painful. Both parents are abandoning Maisie here—her mother sends her letters that include mostly spiteful words addressed to her father, and her father chucks these letters right into the fire. Where is the parental love?!