At length she began to have a glimmering of the relation of labour
between Miss St. John and him, and applied to the former for some
enlightenment. But Miss St. John was far from explicit, for she had
no desire for such assistance as Lady Georgina's. What motives next
led her to seek the interview I am now about to record, I cannot
satisfactorily explain, but I will hazard a conjecture or two,
although I doubt if she understood them thoroughly herself.
She was, if not blas?e, at least ennuy?e, and began to miss
excitement, and feel blindly about her for something to make life
interesting. She was gifted with far more capacity than had ever
been exercised, and was of a large enough nature to have grown
sooner weary of trifles than most women of her class. She might
have been an artist, but she drew like a young lady; she might have
been a prophetess, and Byron was her greatest poet. It is no wonder
that she wanted something she had not got.
Since she had been foiled in her attempt on Miss St. John, which she
attributed to jealousy, she had, in quite another circle, heard
strange, wonderful, even romantic stories about Falconer and his
doings among the poor. A new world seemed to open before her
longing gaze--a world, or a calenture, a mirage? for would she cross
the 'wandering fields of barren foam,' to reach the green grass that
did wave on the far shore? the dewless desert to reach the fair
water that did lie leagues beyond its pictured sweetness? But I
think, mingled with whatever motives she may have had, there must
have been some desire to be a nobler, that is a more useful woman
than she had been.
Pages:
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643