She knew that she was an old woman, without money,
without blood, and without attraction, whom nobody would ever again
desire to see. She had her things packed up, and herself taken off
to London, almost without a word of farewell to the Duchess,
telling herself as she went that the world had produced no other
people so heartless as the family of the Trefoils.
"I wonder what you will think of Patagonia," said Mounser Green as
he took his bride away.
"I don't suppose I shall think much. As far as I can see one place
is always like another."
"But then you will have duties."
"Not very heavy I hope."
Then he preached her a sermon, expressing a hope as he went on,
that as she was leaving the pleasures of life behind her, she would
learn to like the work of life. "I have found the pleasures very
hard," she said. He spoke to her of the companion he hoped to find,
of the possible children who might be dependent on their mother, of
the position which she would hold, and of the manner in which she
should fill it. She, as she listened to him, was almost stunned by
the change in the world around her. She need never again seem to be
gay in order that men might be attracted. She made her promises and
made them with an intention of keeping them; but it may, we fear,
be doubted whether he was justified in expecting that he could get
a wife fit for his purpose out of the school in which Arabella
Trefoil had been educated.
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