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Page 30
"You do not think with Mrs. Ivers in all things, I perceive," said the
gentleman I have twice alluded to.
"I am hardly, from my situation," replied Rose, "privileged to think
her thoughts, though perhaps I may think of them."
"A nice distinction," he answered.
"Our lots in life are differently cast. In a week I return to
Abbeyweld; I only came to be her nurse in illness, and was induced to
remain a little longer because I was useful to her. They will go to
the Continent now, and I shall return to my native village."
"But," said the gentleman, in a tone of the deepest interest, "shall
you really return without regret?"
"Without regret? Oh yes!"
"Regret nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Suppose," he continued, in a suppressed tone of deep
emotion--"suppose that a man, young, rich, and perfectly aware of
the value of your pure and unsullied nature, was to lay his hand and
heart"--
"I pray, I entreat you, say not another word," interrupted Rose,
breathlessly. "If there should be any such, which is hardly possible,
sooner than he should deign to make a proposal to me, I would tell him
that before I came to visit my cousin, only the very night before, I
became the betrothed of another."
"Of some one, Rose, who took advantage of your ignorance of the
world--of your want of knowledge of society?"
"Oh no!" she replied, covering her face with her hand; "oh no! he is
incapable of that. He would have suffered me to leave Abbeyweld free
of promise, but I would not."
"And do you hold the same faith still Rose? Think, has not what you
have seen, and shared in, made you ambitious of something beyond a
country life? Your refined mind and genuine feeling, your taste--do
not, I implore you, deceive yourself."
"I do not, sir; indeed, I do not. Pardon me; I would not speak
disrespectfully of those above me. Of course, I have not been admitted
into that familiarity which would lead me to comprehend what at
present appears to me even more disturbed by the littleness of life
than a country village. Conventional forms have, I fear, little to
do with elevation of mind; they seem to me the result of habit rather
than of thought or feeling. I know this, at least, 'All is not gold
that glitters.' I have seen a tree, fair to look at in the distance,
and covered with green leaves, but when approached closely, the trunk
was foul and hollowed by impurities, and when the blast came, it could
not stand; even so with many, fair without and foul within, and the
first adversity, the first great sorrow, over-throws them."
"But this may be the case with the poor as well as the rich, in the
country as well as the town."
"I am sure of it, sir. No station can be altogether free from
impurity; but in the country the incitements to evil seem to me less
numerous, and the temptations fewer by far; the most dangerous of all,
a desire to shine, to climb above our fellows, less continual. The
middle class is there more healthy and independent."
"And all this owing to the mere circumstance, think you, of
situation?" interrupted the gentleman.
"I am only country bred, sir, as you know," replied Rose, earnestly
but meekly; "and the only advantage I have had has been in the society
of one you have heard me mention before now--our worthy rector--and he
says it would make all that is wrong come right, if people would only
fear God and love their neighbour."
"I believe," said the gentleman, "he is right, quite right; for out of
such religion springs contentment, and all the higher as well as the
humbler virtues. Yes, he is quite right." Much more he urged Rose,
with all the persuasive eloquence of warm affection, to discover, if
it were possible, she could change. He tried her on all points, but
she replied with the clear straightforward truthfulness that has
nothing to conceal. She wavered in nothing: firm to her love, steady
to her principles, right-thinking and clear-sighted, he felt that
Rose Dillon of Abbeyweld would have added the dignity of virtue to the
dignity of rank, but that her mind was of too high an order to bend to
the common influences that lead women along the beaten track of life.
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