Leslie's
writing. But though Nan went back for it, and kissed it more than once
before she went to bed, and even put it under her pillow as a comfort
and defense against she knew not what, for the first time in her life
she was afraid to open it and read the kind words. That night she
watched the moonlight creep along the floor, and heard the cocks crow
at midnight and in the morning; the birds woke with the new day while
she tried to understand the day that had gone, wondering what she must
do and say when she faced the world again only a few hours later.
Sometimes she felt herself carried along upon a rushing tide, and was
amazed that a hundred gifts and conditions to which she had scarcely
given a thought seemed dear and necessary. Once she fancied herself in
a quiet home; living there, perhaps, in that very house, and being
pleased with her ordering and care-taking. And her great profession
was all like a fading dream; it seemed now no matter whether she had
ever loved the studies of it, or been glad to think that she had it in
her power to make suffering less, or prevent it altogether. Her old
ambitions were torn away from her one by one, and in their place came
the hardly-desired satisfactions of love and marriage, and home-making
and housekeeping, the dear, womanly, sheltered fashions of life,
toward which she had been thankful to see her friends go hand in hand,
making themselves a complete happiness which nothing else could match.
Pages:
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284