If at one
moment Ida was conscious of her claim to inspire a noble enthusiasm,
at another she fell into the saddest self-distrust, and, in her
hunger for love, would gladly have sought every humblest aid of
grace and adornment. So she had yielded to the needs of her heart,
and only this morning was gladdened by the charm of some new
clothing which became her well, and which Waymark would see in a day
or two. It lay there before her now that she returned home, and, in
the first onset of trouble, she sat down and cried over it.
She suffered the more, too, that there had been something of a
falling off of late in the good health she generally enjoyed. The
day's work seemed long and hard; she felt an unwonted need of rest.
And these things caused trouble of the mind. With scarcely an hour
of depression she had worked on through those months of solitude,
supported by the sense that every day brought an accession of the
strength of purity, that the dark time was left one more stage
behind, and that trust in herself was growing assured.
But it was harder than she had foreseen, to maintain reserve and
reticence when her heart was throbbing with passion; the effect upon
her of Waymark's comparative coldness was so much harder to bear
than she had imagined.
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