When she had recovered from the parting with her uncles, Adeline accepted the change with docility. Long inured as she was to spiritual solitude (for the closest friendship that can exist between a child and an adult comprises little more than an affectionate tolerance on either side, and certainly knows nothing of those intimate psychic affinities which attract child to child or man to man), she could not, indeed, have easily found much hardship in the conditions of her new life. One matter troubled her at first, namely, that Aunt Grace never prayed or read the Bible or went to chapel; nor, so far as Adeline knew, did anyone else at the Abbey. But she soon became reconciled to this state of things. For a time she continued to repeat her prayers; then the habit ceased. The picture-gallery, of which she had heard a great deal, fascinated her at once. It was a long but not very lofty apartment, receiving daylight from a hidden source, hung with the finest examples of the four great Italian schools which flourished during the first half of the sixteenth century: the Venetian, a revel of colour; the Roman, dignified and even sedate; the Florentine, nobly grandiose; and the school of Parma, mysteriously delicate. Opportunity serving, she spent much of her time here, talking busily to the madonnas, the Christs, the martyred saints, the monarchs, the knights, the lovely ladies, and all the naïve mediæval crowd, giving each of them a part in her own infantile romances. When she grew older, she copied--who shall say whether consciously or unconsciously?--the attitudes and gestures of the women; and perhaps in time there passed into Adeline, by some ineffable channel, at least a portion of their demure grace and contented quietude. There were pictures also in the square library, examples of quite modern English and French work, sagaciously chosen by one whose critical faculty had descended to him through four generations of collectors; but Adeline had no eyes for these. The books, however, gorgeous prisoners in glass, were her good friends, though she might never touch them, and though the narrow, conventional girl's education assiduously bestowed upon her by her aunt in person, stifled rather than fostered curiosity with regard to their contents. When Adeline was about nineteen, her guardian became engaged to be married to a middle-aged farmer, a tenant of the Abbey, who made it clear that in espousing Aunt Grace he was not eager to espouse Aunt Grace's _protégée_ also. A serious question arose as to her future. She had only one other relative in England, Mr. Aked, and she passively accepted his timely suggestion that she should go to London and keep house for him. CHAPTER XVI