Swamped in thought of Frederick, she appeared to have lived
in San Salvatore blindly, and more than half the time had gone, and
what had been the good of it? She might just as well have been sitting
hankering on Hampstead Heath. No, she mightn't; through all her
hankerings she had been conscious that she was at least in the very
heart of beauty; and indeed it was this beauty, this longing to share
it, that had first started her off hankering.
Mr. Briggs, however, was too much alive for her to be able to spare any
attention at this moment for Frederick, and she praised the servants in
answer to his questions, and praised the yellow sitting-room without
telling him she had only been in it once and then was ignominiously
ejected, and she told him she knew hardly anything about art and
curiosities, but thought perhaps if somebody would tell her about them
she would know more, and she said she had spent every day since her
arrival out-of-doors, because out-of-doors there was so very wonderful
and different from anything she had ever seen.
Briggs walked by her side along his paths that were yet so
happily for the moment her paths, and felt all the innocent glows of
family life. He was an orphan and an only child, and had a warm,
domestic disposition. He would have adored a sister and spoilt a
mother, and was beginning at this time to think of marrying; for though
he had been very happy with his various loves, each of whom, contrary
to the usual experience, turned ultimately into his devoted friend, he
was fond of children and thought he had perhaps now got to the age of
settling if he did not wish to be too old by the time his eldest son
was twenty.
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