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And his countenance was so softened, mournful, and tender, that Agatha's affection returned. There was something childish and foolish in these small wranglings. They wore her patience away. For the twentieth time she vowed not to make herself unhappy, or restless, or cross, but to take Nathanael's goodness as she saw it, believing in it and him.
It was said in such a pleasant voice, with such a simple, child-like air of delighted astonishment, that Agatha, conquering her shyness at this first meeting with one of her husband's family, peeped behind Nathanael's shoulder at Mr. Dugdale. She saw what to her keen sense of beauty was a considerable shock the very plainest man she thought she had ever beheld! "Mr. Dugdale my wife." "Indeed!
He would not close his eyes, but they looked misty and heavy, and his fingers played lazily with one another on the arm of his chair; Agatha laid her own upon them she could not help it. She lost her fear of the repellent Mr. Harper in the old man, so helpless and feeble. She wished she had come oftener to Kingcombe Holm, and been more attentive and daughter-like to Nathanael's father.
She was left alone with her lover and with Anne Anne, who ever since her arrival had seemed to keep a steady watch over Nathanael's bride. They had rarely met, and for brief intervals; yet Agatha felt that she was perpetually under this guardianship, gentle, though strong holding her fluctuating spirit firm, and filling her with all cheerful hopes and tender thoughts of her future husband.
Agatha woke with the sunshine full in her eyes, and the early church-bells ringing. "Oh, where am I? What day is this? Where is my husband?" The new maid, Nathanael's foster-sister, was standing by, smiling all respectful civilities, informing her in broad Dorset that it was Sunday, time for "missus" to get up, and that "master" was walking in the garden.
To begin with "Once upon a time," the best beginning for a story, seemed to me too tame; with "In the small country town S lived," rather better, at any rate allowing plenty of room to work up to the climax; or to plunge at once in medias res, "'Go to the devil! cried the student Nathanael, his eyes blazing wildly with rage and fear, when the weather-glass hawker Giuseppe Coppola" well, that is what I really had written, when I thought I detected something of the ridiculous in Nathanael's wild glance; and the history is anything but laughable.
Whereupon Nathanael, quite angry because Clara would only grant the existence of the demon in his own mind, began to dilate at large upon the whole mystic doctrine of devils and awful powers, but Clara abruptly broke off the theme by making, to Nathanael's very great disgust, some quite commonplace remark.
She answered Nathanael's question in an abrupt negative; but all the way through Russell Square she silently pondered as to who, or what like, Anne Valery could be? finally sketching a fancy portrait of a bewitching young creature, with blue eyes and golden hair the style of beauty which Agatha most envied, because it was most unlike herself. Ere reaching Dr.
No wonder, therefore, that she had had time for meditation, or that her comparison between the two brothers should be rather to Nathanael's disadvantage.
Last of all, was the eye, ear, and heart of the house, kept tenderly in its inmost nook, from which for twenty years she had never moved, and never would move until softly carried to the house appointed for all living Elizabeth, the eldest of whom Nathanael's soft voice grew softer as he spoke. His betrothed hesitated to ask many questions about Elizabeth.
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