He
sat down very gently--afraid to disturb the graceful figure kneeling
within touch of his hand--how devout she seemed, he thought! But as
the Agnus Dei ceased, she stirred, and rose quietly,--as quietly as
a bent flower might lift itself in the grass after the rush of the
wind,--and gave him a gentle salute, then sat down beside him,
drooping her soft eyes over her prayer-book, but not before he had
seen that they were wet with tears. Was she unhappy he wondered? It
seemed impossible! Such a woman could never be unhappy! With beauty,
health, and a sunny temperament,--wealth and independence, what
could she know of sorrow! It is strange how seldom a man can enter
into the true comprehension of a woman's grief, though he may often
be the cause of the trouble. A woman, if endowed with beauty and
charm, ought never, in a man's opinion, to LOOK sad, whatever she
may FEEL. It is her business to smile, and shine like a sunbeam on a
spring morning for his delectation always. And Aubrey Leigh, though
he could thoroughly appreciate and enter into the sordid woes of
hard-worked and poverty-stricken womankind, was not without the same
delusion that seems to possess all his sex,--namely, that if a woman
is brilliantly endowed, and has sufficient of this world's goods to
ensure her plenty of friends and pretty toilettes, she need never be
unhappy.
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