With all my care, there are some things in Mrs.
Plumptree's management which I do not understand. I'm sure what becomes of
all the preserved-ginger and crystallized apricots that I give out, is a
mystery that no one could fathom. Who ever eats preserved-ginger? I have
taken particular notice, and could never see any one doing it. The things
are not eaten; _they disappear_."
Lady Laura suggested that, with such a fortune as Mr. Granger's, a little
waste more or less was hardly worth thinking of.
"I cannot admit that," Miss Granger replied solemnly. "It is the abstract
sinfulness of waste which I think of. An under-butler who begins by wasting
preserved-ginger may end by stealing his master's plate."
The summer went by. Picnics and boating parties, archery meetings and
flower-shows, and all the familiar round of country pleasures repeated
themselves just as they had done at Hale Castle two years ago; and Clarissa
wondered at the difference in her own mind which made these things so
different. It was not that all capacity for enjoyment was dead in her.
Youth is too bright a thing to be killed so easily. She could still delight
in a lovely landscape, in exquisite flowers, in that art which she had
loved from her childhood--she could still enjoy good music and pleasant
society; but that keen sense of happiness which she had felt at Hale, that
ardent appreciation of small pleasures, that eager looking forward to the
future--these were gone.
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