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Ingelow, Jean, 1820-1897

"Fated to Be Free"


After that, John took his three elder children on the Continent, keeping
the boy with him till Harrow School opened again, and remaining behind
with the girls till the first week in November. During this time he by
no means troubled himself about the domestic happiness that he felt he
had missed, though he looked forward with fresh interest to the time
when his intelligent little daughters would be companions for him, and
began, half unconsciously, to idealise the character of his late wife,
as if her death had cost him a true companion--as if, in fact, it had
not made him much nobler and far happier.
He was not sorry, when he returned home, to find Valentine eager to get
away for a little while, for it had been agreed that the old man should
not be left by both of them. Valentine was improved; his comfortable and
independent position in his uncle's house, where his presence was so
evidently regarded as an advantage, had made him more satisfied with
himself; and absence from Dorothea had enabled him to take an interest
in other women.


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