My dear Mrs Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed you.

We were both too young, too dependent and helpless, to do anything but

accept our separation.--Pray think how long ago,' gently remonstrated

Arthur. 'One more remark,' proceeded Flora with unslackened volubility,

'I wish to make, one more explanation I wish to offer, for five days I

had a cold in the head from crying which I passed entirely in the back

drawing-room--there is the back drawing-room still on the first floor

and still at the back of the house to confirm my words--when that dreary

period had passed a lull succeeded years rolled on and Mr F. became

acquainted with us at a mutual friend's, he was all attention he called

next day he soon began to call three evenings a week and to send

in little things for supper it was not love on Mr F.'s part it was

adoration, Mr F. proposed with the full approval of Papa and what could

I do?'

'Nothing whatever,' said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, 'but

what you did. Let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that

you did quite right.' 'One last remark,' proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with a

wave of her hand, 'I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer,

there was a time ere Mr F. first paid attentions incapable of being

mistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr Clennam you no

longer wear a golden chain you are free I trust you may be happy, here

is Papa who is always tiresome and putting in his nose everywhere where

he is not wanted.' With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid

caution--such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in the old

time--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a long long way

behind again; and came to a full stop at last.

Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age

behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; thus

making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated

with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the

comical were curiously blended. For example.

As if there were a secret understanding between herself

and Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first of a train of

post-chaises and four, extending all the way to Scotland, were at that

moment round the corner; and as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) have

walked into the Parish Church with him, under the shade of the family

umbrella, with the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the perfect

concurrence of all mankind; Flora comforted her soul with agonies of

mysterious signalling, expressing dread of discovery. With the sensation

of becoming more and more light-headed every minute, Clennam saw the

relict of the late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner,

by putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all

the old performances--now, when the stage was dusty, when the scenery

was faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was

empty, when the lights were out. And still, through all this grotesque

revival of what he remembered as having once been prettily natural to

her, he could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, and that

there was a tender memory in it.




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