Mrs. Burrage had indeed explained this partly by saying that her son's
condition was wearing her out, and that she would enter into anything
that would make him happier, make him better. She was fonder of him than
of the whole world beside, and it was an anguish to her to see him
yearning for Miss Tarrant only to lose her. She made that charge about
Olive's power in the matter in such a way that it seemed at the same
time a tribute to her force of character.
"I don't know on what terms you suppose me to be with my friend," Olive
returned, with considerable majesty. "She will do exactly as she likes,
in such a case as the one you allude to. She is absolutely free; you
speak as if I were her keeper!"
Then Mrs. Burrage explained that of course she didn't mean that Miss
Chancellor exercised a conscious tyranny; but only that Verena had a
boundless admiration for her, saw through her eyes, took the impress of
all her opinions, preferences. She was sure that if Olive would only
take a favourable view of her son Miss Tarrant would instantly throw
herself into it. "It's very true that you may ask me," added Mrs.
Burrage, smiling, "how you can take a favourable view of a young man who
wants to marry the very person in the world you want most to keep
unmarried!"
This description of Verena was of course perfectly correct; but it was
not agreeable to Olive to have the fact in question so clearly
perceived, even by a person who expressed it with an air intimating that
there was nothing in the world _she_ couldn't understand.
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