The old Adam still survives in most men, however right-thinking they may
be, and this is one of its methods of self-assertion.
"Well," he said, "I am glad to hear she is in such a good way; she
deserves it. I think the Welsh squire is in luck; Miss Granger is a
remarkable woman."
"Too remarkable by half," said Lady Honoria drily. "Here we are, and
there is Effie, skipping about like a wild thing as usual. I think that
child is demented."
On the following morning--it was Friday--Lady Honoria, accompanied by
Anne, departed in the very best of tempers. For the next three weeks,
at any rate, she would be free from the galling associations of
straightened means--free to enjoy the luxury and refined comfort to
which she had been accustomed, and for which her soul yearned with a
fierce longing that would be incomprehensible to folk of a simpler mind.
Everybody has his or her ideal Heaven, if only one could fathom it. Some
would choose a sublimated intellectual leisure, made happy by the best
literature of all the planets; some a model state (with themselves as
presidents), in which (through their beneficent efforts) the latest
radical notions could actually be persuaded to work to everybody's
satisfaction; others a happy hunting ground, where the game enjoyed the
fun as much as they did; and so on, _ad infinitum_.
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