It was wonderful how much more blue there was in the sea the next
day, how the evergreens glistened, and how beautiful and picturesque
the old house grew; and when I went out in the morning sunshine, for
once, inclined to admit some beauty in the staggering black-legged
and visaged lambs, and meditating a walk to the village, I saw Dermot
coming across the yard, so wearily and breathlessly, that I could
only say, "How could you?"
He looked up piteously. "You don't forbid me?" he said.
I almost cried as I told him it was only his fatigue that I objected
to; and indeed he was glad enough to take Dora's now vacated place on
the great sofa, while we talked of Viola. Writing to her had been,
of course, impossible for him, and he had only had two short notes
from her, so meaningless that I thought she wrote them fearing to
disturb him while he was ill; but he muttered an ominous line from
Locksley Hall, vituperated Piggy, and confessed that his ground for
doing so was that his mother reported Viola as pleased with foreign
life, and happy with her cousins. I said it was his mother's way,
and he replied, "Exactly so; and a girl may be worried into
anything." A slight dispute on that score cheered him a little, for
he showed himself greatly depressed. He was going--as soon as he had
gathered a little strength--back to the duties he had promised to
fulfil on his own property, but he hated the thought, was down-
hearted as to the chances of success, and distrustful of himself
among discouragements, and the old associations he had made for
himself.
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