"Far otherwise," responded Diana. "To speak truth, St. John, my

heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able

to benefit her permanently."

"That is hardly likely," was the reply. "You will find she is some

young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has

probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in

restoring her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines

of force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability."

He stood considering me some minutes; then added, "She looks

sensible, but not at all handsome."

"She is so ill, St. John."

"Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of

beauty are quite wanting in those features."

On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move,

rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry

toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with

relish: the food was good--void of the feverish flavour which had

hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt

comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose and

desire for action stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could I

put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on

the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before

my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.

On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My

black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were

removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was

quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and

rendered presentable. There were the means of washing in the room,

and a comb and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and

resting every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My

clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered

deficiencies with a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable

looking--no speck of the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated,

and which seemed so to degrade me, left--I crept down a stone

staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low passage,

and found my way presently to the kitchen.

It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a

generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known,

are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never

been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as

weeds among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the

first: latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw

me come in tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024