The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1906-03-06

country pars0n was the least likely
man on earth to replace Clifford Mohun
Of Yatton in Jane Grand's heart
CHAPTER XXI.
When they met again all that had
passed between Mr.. Follett and Jane
at this first interview seemed as
though it had not been-a page Of brief
confidence by mutual, tacit consent
shut and sealed and to be opened no
more. The vicar made no deeper in
quiries than as to Miss Grand's bodily
strength, blended with little schemes
Of his own for recruiting the same
and, as far at least as Jane was con-
cerned, they grew again to be once
more on the old terms OF familiar in
tercourse which had sweetened so
many years of the wears life before
the fatal advent Of Clifford Mohun and
his love.
And Jane returned to comparative
health and her former empIoyments,
and patience and gentleness. She was
very long in feeling the slightest taste
for living; and when at length such
taste did come, it was by slow and
capricious approaches, and with very
long intervals Of the old dull loathing.
Her nature was not facile one in its
capabilities for more common, sensu-
GUS enjoyment. If she had cared for
nature before her engagement with
| Clifford, it must have been because she
| peopled it for herself with unsubstan-
tial visions of future sentimental hap
| piness. She cared for it with him
simply because she was with him; and
twilight woods or midday garden sun
shine formed an agreeable auxiliary,
or background, to one principal figure
frosty hedges of red November morn
ing, contrasted with freight and cot
fee and books, could never have
wrought any strong sense of enjoyment
in life in her as in Mr.. Follett. She
was-like the majority of women in
their youth-quite callous to sensation
al or creature comfort; and this kind
of temperament is a much harder one
to be appeased under mental suffering
than an essentially selfish, vivid, open
to every outward and visible source of
consolation like Mr.. Follett's.
| Men forget how great an advantage
| they have over women in this respect.
No one woman in fifty has the faculty
| for loving self heartily. A human
being who always relishes his we'll
cooked food and comforting beverages
"a human being whose physical ener-
gies prompt him every day of his life
| to ride and walk, who finds zest in bill
lizards or stimulus in books, and Wig
orous sense of qualification in all, has
far more numerous chances of rallying
under affliction than human being
who cares not for her dinner, who
drinks water on principle. whose
nature is averse to every kind of bodily
exercise, whose amusement is hem
ming, and whose intellectual capabili-
ties are probably too weak to require
any mention at all.
| 1t was not in James temperament,
now that she had once loved, to derive
hearty nutriment from any other con-
dition of existence than love. And love
was goneI What remained for her but
to drift into that dull. tideless, stag
nant sea toward which all lives must
tend that are passed without enjoy
ment? the life to which unmarried
women, the gentle and loving ones
| especially, seemed forced to succumb?
She was seldom impatient-in words
she never complained; but the tone of
her voice, the expression Of her face,
the droop Of her head, were quite
enough to tell any one experienced in
such things that she lived without hap
piness and that no action in the day
inspired her with the slightest real in
| terest. At one-and- twenty she felt
older than most commonly -contented
married women do at forty. She knew
that only one state would have made
her happy, and that she had missed
that state; and she had not strength
OF mind enough to take to any other
vocation than the one for which she
felt herself to be specially designed.
and Of which an unkindIy fate had
robbed her.
Happily for US all, the progress of
one mortal disease impedes for the
time that Of another the heart has
only room for one great anguish at
time. In losing Clifford, Jane Grand
lost all; and the shame Of her own
birth seemed almost unimportant in
presence Of that Overwhelming mis-
fortune which had laid her whole i'm
mediate and personal happiness low.
Miss Lynch, who could understand
small passions better than great ones.
pronounced many euIogies over James
Christian submission to her new
knowledge. when the poor girl. in.
reality was not so much submitting as
feeling nothing. It was when all the
freshness was gone from her master
sorrow, when it had become. so to
speak, part of herself-of her daily
meat ana drink that Jane began to
think much Of her own fearfully low
social position. And then she found,
almost with surprise. now very scant
the pity was that she had felt for her