"
So, a little later, I sat up in my new chair and received the Cradlebow,
in a loose, trailing gown of rich material, daintily embroidered. In the
midst of my narrow and humble surroundings I had an exiled-princess sort
of consciousness, and recognized with a new pleasure the Cradlebow's
lordly face and bearing, as he stooped on entering the little red door.
Living in a reverie, still,--a fancy, a day-dream, strangely vivid and
life-like, but not real,--not real, I was so far softened by my illness
that, with the delicious sense of returning health and strength, I was
content, for a time, to live simply in the present, to dismiss the stern
warden, Duty, from my thoughts, and that ever-grave necessity for
maintaining a mental and moral superiority which had so oppressed me.
"It had been weary work living on the heights, and what had it all
amounted to?" I asked myself, with a recklessness too tranquil, now, to
be converted into bitterness. "It was so much easier and safer, lower
down." But while I doubted and almost gave up the struggle, the
Cradlebow aspired ever to greater faith and hope in life, and enthusiasm
for life's work.
And with all this, it was evident that there had been with him an inward
struggle and preparation, a silent conquering of self.
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