Much too generous and helpful to have saved money,
she was now, in middle age, working as hard as she had ever worked in
her youth. Not a little experienced in the ways of the world, and
possessing a high ideal in the memories of a precious friendship,
against which to compare the ways of smaller mortals, she did not find
her atmosphere gladdened by the presence of Mr. Vavasor's. With tact
enough to take his cue from the family, he treated her with studious
politeness; but Miss Dasomma did not like Mr. Vavasor. She had to think
before she could tell why, for there is a spiritual instinct also, which
often takes the lead of the understanding, and has to search and analyze
itself for its own explanation. But the question once roused, she
prosecuted it, and in the shadow of a curtain, while Hester was playing,
watched his countenance, trying to read it--to read, that is, what the
owner of that face never meant to write, but could no more help writing
there than he could help having a face. What a man is lies as certainly
upon his countenance as in his heart, though none of his acquaintance
may be able to read it. Their very intercourse with him may have
rendered it more difficult.
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