She slept little during the night, starting awake as
often as she began to slumber, and before the morning came was a
good deal humbled. All sorts of means are kept at work to make the
children obedient and simple and noble. Joy and sorrow are servants
in God's nursery; pain and delight, ecstasy and despair minister in
it; but amongst them there is none more marvellous in its potency
than that mingling of all pains and pleasures to which we specially
give the name of Love.
When she appeared at breakfast, her countenance bore traces of her
suffering, but a headache, real enough, though little heeded in
the commotion upon whose surface it floated, gave answer to the not
very sympathetic solicitude of Florimel. Happily the day of their
return was near at hand. Some talk there had been of protracting
their stay, but to that Clementina avoided any farther allusion.
She must put an end to an intercourse which she was compelled to
admit was, at least, in danger of becoming dangerous. This much she
had with certainty discovered concerning her own feelings, that her
heart grew hot and cold at the thought of the young man belonging
more to the mistress who could not understand him than to herself
who imagined she could; and it wanted no experience in love to see
that it was therefore time to be on her guard against herself, for
to herself she was growing perilous.
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