The moral effect of this friendship upon Theresa herself was not,
however, of the happiest. Fired by their interest in her recitals she was
tempted to spread herself. At first almost unconsciously, for by instinct
she was truthful, she embroidered fact, magnifying her office not only in
respect of her ex-pupil Damaris but of Damaris' father also. She
represented herself as indispensable to both parent and child, until she
more than half believed that flattering fiction. She began to reckon
herself an essential element in the establishment at The Hard, the pivot
indeed upon which it turned. Whereupon a rather morbid craving for the
Miss Minetts' society developed in her. For, with those two credulous
ladies as audience, she could fortify herself in delusion by recounting
all manner of episodes and incidents not as they actually had, but as she
so ardently desired they might have, taken place.--A pathetic form of
lying this, though far from uncommon to feminine and--more
especially--spinster practice and habit!
Still Theresa was not so besotted but that lucid intervals now and again
afflicted her.
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