'Louisa, I have a misgiving that some change
may have been slowly working about me in this house, by mere love
and gratitude: that what the Head had left undone and could not
do, the Heart may have been doing silently. Can it be so?'
She made him no reply.
'I am not too proud to believe it, Louisa. How could I be
arrogant, and you before me! Can it be so? Is it so, my dear?'
He looked upon her once more, lying cast away there; and without
another word went out of the room. He had not been long gone, when
she heard a light tread near the door, and knew that some one stood
beside her.
She did not raise her head. A dull anger that she should be seen
in her distress, and that the involuntary look she had so resented
should come to this fulfilment, smouldered within her like an
unwholesome fire. All closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy.
The air that would be healthful to the earth, the water that would
enrich it, the heat that would ripen it, tear it when caged up. So
in her bosom even now; the strongest qualities she possessed, long
turned upon themselves, became a heap of obduracy, that rose
against a friend.
Pages:
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410