Tarrant, as we have seen, desired to do her
honour by inviting another guest. This guest, after much deliberation
between that lady and Verena, was selected, and the first person Olive
saw on entering the little parlour in Cambridge was a young man with
hair prematurely, or, as one felt that one should say, precociously
white, whom she had a vague impression she had encountered before, and
who was introduced to her as Mr. Matthias Pardon.
She suffered less than she had hoped--she was so taken up with the
consideration of Verena's interior. It was as bad as she could have
desired; desired in order to feel that (to take her out of such a
_milieu_ as that) she should have a right to draw her altogether to
herself. Olive wished more and more to extract some definite pledge from
her; she could hardly say what it had best be as yet; she only felt that
it must be something that would have an absolute sanctity for Verena and
would bind them together for life. On this occasion it seemed to shape
itself in her mind; she began to see what it ought to be, though she
also saw that she would perhaps have to wait awhile. Mrs. Tarrant, too,
in her own house, became now a complete figure; there was no manner of
doubt left as to her being vulgar.
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