Two years ago Mary's light figure
would have swung itself down among the ivy leaves, and she would have
gloried in the thought of circumventing James Steadman so easily. But
now Mary was a young lady--a young lady engaged to be married, and
impressed with the responsibilities of her position, deeply sensible of
a new dignity, for the preservation of which she was in a manner
answerable to her lover.
'What would _he_ think of me if I went scrambling down the ivy?' she
asked herself; 'and after he has approved of Steadman's heartless
restrictions, it would be rank rebellion against him if I were to do it.
Poor old man, "Thou art so near and yet so far," as Lesbia's song says.'
She blew a kiss on the tips of her fingers towards that sad solitary
figure, and then dropped back into the dusty duskiness of the loft. But
although her new ideas upon the subject of 'Anstand'--or good
behaviour--prevented her getting the better of Steadman by foul means,
she was all the more intent upon having her own way by fair means, now
that the impression of the old man's sadness and solitude had been
renewed by the sight of the drooping figure by the sundial.
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