She couldn't understand why this engagement made such an impression upon her. She felt there was no disappointment to her in it. In fact, her interest in Mr Hansted had been on the wane latterly; and it did not raise him in her estimation to find that he had engaged himself to a peasant girl. She thought there was something so pitiable in this ruling propensity for all that was undeveloped, petty, child-like, simple.
At the same time, she felt as if by this event, one more light had been put out in her existence; as if there was one more vacant spot in her heart. She felt that she had lost a friend—who, in a way, was her only one. But—what was worse—she had lost a sympathetic fellow-sufferer—in this wilderness of solitude and melancholy.… Was it more?
She looked at her old friend Methuselah the parrot—he was swinging in his ring and pluming his green feathers. Well! she and her parrot were alone again! But for that matter she could imagine worse company, and she was not likely to envy the curate's new friends.
She was just stretching out her hand to caress the bird, when she heard footsteps creaking in the passage. There was no doubt about it—it was the curate coming downstairs from his room.
She sat still for a moment, her eyes fixed on her lap, in violent conflict with herself. Then she got up, walked across the floor quickly and
