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how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses
of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm
generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for
their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their
brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a
stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded
in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to
confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to
playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to
condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn
more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh:
the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had
thrilled me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her
laugh. There were days when she was quite silent; but there were
others when I could not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I
saw her: she would come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a
tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally
(oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing
a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the
curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she
had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to
draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a
monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort.
The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah
the housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in
no respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and
sometimes I asked her questions about her native country; but she
was not of a descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such
vapid and confused answers as were calculated rather to check than
encourage inquiry.
October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in
January, Mrs. Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adele, because she
had a cold; and, as Adele seconded the request with an ardour that
reminded me how precious occasional holidays had been to me in my
own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in showing
pliability on the point. It was a fine, calm day, though very cold;
I was tired of sitting still in the library through a whole long
morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to
be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak and volunteered to carry it
to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a pleasant winter
afternoon walk. Having seen Adele comfortably seated in her little
chair by Mrs. Fairfax's parlour fireside, and given her her best wax
doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a drawer) to
play with, and a story-book for a change of amusement; and having