She watched her niece anxiously, as the
latter went across to the fire-place and stood, her back to the room,
looking down into the glowing logs.
For she had--or rather ought she not to have?--another communication to
make which involved the fighting of a battle on her own account, not
against Henrietta Frayling, still less against Damaris, but against
herself. It trembled on the tip of her tongue. She felt impelled, yet
sorrowed to utter it. Hence her wishes and purposes jostled one another,
being tenderly, bravely, heroically even, contradictory. In speaking she
invited the shattering of a dream of personal election to happiness--a
late blossoming happiness and hence the more entrancing, the more
pathetic. That any hope of the dream's fulfilment was fragile as glass,
lighter than gossamer, the veriest shadow of a shade, her natural
diffidence and sane sense, alike, convinced her. For this very cause, the
dream being of the sweetest and most intimate, how gladly would she have
cherished the enchanting foolishness of it a trifle longer!--Her act of
heroism would earn no applause, moreover, would pass practically
unnoticed.
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