"
"He spends all his time in long walks; he enjoys the country so much,"
Verena said.
"Well, it's very beautiful, what I see from here. I haven't been strong
enough to move round since the first days. But I am going to move now."
She smiled when Ransom made a gesture as if to help her, and added: "Oh,
I don't mean I am going to move out of my chair."
"Mr. Ransom has been out in a boat with me several times. I have been
showing him how to cast a line," said Doctor Prance, who appeared to
deprecate a sentimental tendency.
"Oh, well, then, you have been one of our party; there seems to be every
reason why you should feel that you belong to us." Miss Birdseye looked
at the visitor with a sort of misty earnestness, as if she wished to
communicate with him further; then her glance turned slightly aside; she
tried to see what had become of Olive. She perceived that Miss
Chancellor had withdrawn herself, and, closing her eyes, she mused,
ineffectually, on the mystery she had not grasped, the peculiarity of
Basil Ransom's relations with her hostess. She was visibly too weak to
concern herself with it very actively; she only felt, now that she
seemed really to be going, a desire to reconcile and harmonise. But she
presently exhaled a low, soft sigh--a kind of confession that it was too
mixed, that she gave it up. Ransom had feared for a moment that she was
about to indulge in some appeal to Olive, some attempt to make him join
hands with that young lady, as a supreme satisfaction to herself.
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