George of the piece, glittering in the halo shed round him
by the bright eyes of the rescued damsel; while Clarence might drag
himself along as the poor recreant to be contemned and tolerated,
and he would accept the position meekly as only his desert, without
a thought of bitterness. Indeed, he himself seemed to have imbibed
Nurse Gooch's original opinion, that his genuine love for sacred
things was a sort of impertinence and pretension in such as he--a
kind of hypocrisy even when they were the realities and helps to
which he clung with all his heart. Still, this depression was only
shown by reserve, and troubled no one save myself, who knew him best
guessed what was lost by his silence, and burned in spirit at seeing
him merely endured as one unworthy.
In one of our varieties of Waverley discussions the crystal hardness
and inexperienced intolerance of youth made Miss Fordyce declare
that had she been Edith Plantagenet, she would never, never have
forgiven Sir Kenneth. 'How could she, when he had forsaken the
king's banner? Unpardonable!'
Then came a sudden, awful silence, as she recollected her audience,
and blushed crimson with the misery of perceiving where her random
shaft had struck, nor did either of us know what to say; but to our
surprise it was Clarence who first spoke to relieve the desperate
embarrassment.
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