The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-01-10
NJ.

CHAPTER NJ.
When. they me- again all that had
passed between Mr.. FOllett Il 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
uuiries 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 i'll
~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 employments.
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 a .facile IN IN its,
capabilities for more common, sersC-
Gus enjoyment. If she had cared for
nature before her engagement with
Clifford. it must have beeu 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 Of midday garden sun
shine formed an agreeable auxiliary,
OF background, to Il principal figure
Nj. Clifford Mohun. The raw air and
frosty hedges OF q 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-Guite callous to sensation
81 or creature comfort; and this klnd
of temperament is q much harder u
10 be %appeased: under. Notwithstanding
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 relislies 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 a Wig
orous sense Of qualification in all. has
far more numerous chances of rallyinS
under af1iction than 4 human being
who cares not for her dinner. who
drinks water on principle, whose
nature is ayerse to every kind of bodily
exercise. whose amusement is LEM
ming, and whose intellectual capabi!l-
ties are probably too weak 10 require
any mention at all.
1t was lot in James temperament,
nov that she lad once loved, to derive
hearty nutriment from any other con-
dition Of existence than love. And love
was gone! 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 i~mpatient-in words
she never complained; but the ton OF
her voice, the expression of her face.
the droop Of her head, were quite
enough to tell any n experienced IN
such things that she lived without hap
piness and that no action III the day
inspired her with the slightest real in
terest. At one-and-twenty she felt
older than most common!y-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 n for which she
felt herself to be specially designed,
aid of which all unkindly fate had
robbed her.
Happily for rs all, the progress OF
one mortal disease impeGes for the
time that Of another-the heart has
only room FOR one great anguish at O
time. IN losing Clifford, Jane Grand
lost ali; and the shame of her W
birth seemed almost uninportant i'll
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 eulogies over James
Christian submission to her new
knowledge, when the poor girl. in
reality was not so much submitting rs
feeling nothing. 1t IA when all the
freshness was gone. from her master
sorrow. when it had become, SO to
speak, part of herself-of her daily
meat and d%rink-that Jane began to
think much of her own fearfully low
social position. And then she found,
almost with surprise, how very scant
the pity was that she had felt for her