Some
people might fancy the life dull, perhaps, but it has scarcely seemed so to
me. Of course it is very different from life here; but I suppose one would
get tired of such a perpetual round of pleasure as Lady Laura provides for
us."
"I should imagine so. Life in a country house full of delightful people
must be quite intolerable beyond a certain limit. One so soon gets tired of
one's best friends. I think that is why people travel so much nowadays. It
is the only polite excuse for being alone."
The time came when Clarissa began to fancy that her visit had lasted long
enough, and that, in common decency, she was bound to depart; but on
suggesting as much to Lady Laura, that kindly hostess declared she could
not possibly do without her dearest Clarissa for ever so long.
"Indeed, I don't know how I shall ever get on without you, my dear," she
said; "we suit each other so admirably, you see. Why, I shall have no one
to read Tasso with--no one to help me with my Missal when you are gone."
Miss Lovel's familiar knowledge of Italian literature, and artistic tastes,
had been altogether delightful to Lady Laura; who was always trying to
improve herself, as she called it, and travelled from one pursuit to
another, with a laudable perseverance, but an unhappy facility for
forgetting one accomplishment in the cultivation of another. Thus by
a vigorous plunge into Spanish and Calderon this year, she was apt to
obliterate the profound impression created by Dante and Tasso last year.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120