Miss Chancellor's aspirations, of late, had
been immensely quickened; she had begun to believe in herself to a
livelier tune than she had ever listened to before; and she now
perceived that when spirit meets spirit there must either be mutual
absorption or a sharp concussion. It had long been familiar to her that
she should have to count with the obstinacy of the world at large, but
she now discovered that she should have to count also with certain
elements in the feminine camp. This complicated the problem, and such a
complication, naturally, could not make Mrs. Farrinder appear more easy
to assimilate. If Olive's was a high nature and so was hers, the fault
was in neither; it was only an admonition that they were not needed as
landmarks in the same part of the field. If such perceptions are
delicate as between men, the reader need not be reminded of the
exquisite form they may assume in natures more refined. So it was that
Olive passed, in three months, from the stage of veneration to that of
competition; and the process had been accelerated by the introduction of
Verena into the fold. Mrs. Farrinder had behaved in the strangest way
about Verena. First she had been struck with her, and then she hadn't;
first she had seemed to want to take her in, then she had shied at her
unmistakably--intimating to Olive that there were enough of that kind
already.
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