The words sounded in her own ears as if she were
sentencing herself to leave heaven.
Her mother could not be allowed to marry George Boult; she could not
remain in the shop. How were she and Bessie to live? With the vanity of
youth, which always sees itself in the foreground, Deleah thought she
perceived that it was she who must get a living for them all.
In her small distracted head she decided as she walked along that she
would hire a little house, start a little school. Perhaps some one would
pay the first quarter's rent, and she could pay it back when the pupils
came.
"Some one" in days gone by would have meant Sir Francis; but now, living
under the same roof with him, seeing in what deference he was held even by
his own sister, feeling his reserve, his aloofness from the low concerns
of such as she, she had become extraordinarily shy of that great man.
Through the daring of ignorance, trusting in that look of serenity and
nobility in his face, she had formerly approached him. She believed in his
goodness still as she believed in the goodness of God, but the awe of him
she had always felt had descended, since she had lived beneath his roof,
in a double measure upon her.
Of his sister she had no fear.
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