"And the dictates of my heart are all for staying at home and looking
after my ancient parents and worrying them. Am I to be sent away? Not
yet, old gentleman, not yet."
The Reverend Thomas Glynde laughed, somewhat as if a weight had been
lifted from his heart. In his way he was a conscientious man. It was his
honest conviction that Dora would do well to marry Arthur, who was a
gentleman and essentially harmless. In persuading her to do so covertly,
as he had thought well to do, he was honestly performing that which he
thought to be his duty towards her. Presently Mrs. Glynde came back, and
shortly afterwards Dora left the room. The Rector was not reading the
book he held open on his knee, but gazed instead absently at the pattern
of the hearthrug.
A change had come in this quiet household. Dora had gone away a child.
She had come back a woman, with that consciousness of life which comes
somewhere between twenty and thirty years of age--a consciousness which
is partly made up of the knowledge that life is, after all, given to each
one of us individually to make the best of as well as we may; and no one
knows what that best is except ourselves.
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