But in her exterior relations to things of this world, Lucy willingly
received the ruling impulse from those around her. The alternative was,
in general, too indifferent to her to render resistance desirable, and
she willingly found a motive for decision in the opinion of her friends
which perhaps she might have sought for in vain in her own choice.
Every reader must have observed in some family of his acquaintance some
individual of a temper soft and yielding, who, mixed with stronger and
more ardent minds, is borne along by the will of others, with as little
power of opposition as the flower which is flung into a running stream.
It usually happens that such a compliant and easy disposition, which
resigns itself without murmur to the guidance of others, becomes the
darling of those to whose inclinations its own seem to be offered, in
ungrudging and ready sacrifice. This was eminently the case with Lucy
Ashton. Her politic, wary, and wordly father felt for her an affection
the strength of which sometimes surprised him into an unusual emotion.
Her elder brother, who trode the path of ambition with a haughtier step
than his father, had also more of human affection.
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