British -- Italy -- Fiction; Rich people -- Fiction; Single women -- Fiction
She rose easily, without any effort of her
own, into something of the same princess position which she held at
home. The English chaplain went to her at once, you may be sure, and got
the largest subscription from her that had ever been known in the
records of the church at Pisa. If she did not buy alabaster at Sophy’s
favourite shop, she bought better things, and befriended everybody,
which was the best of all. On the ground of having been once poor
herself, her sympathy for all who were poor went the length of
absurdity, Mrs. Hunstanton thought. And even Mrs. Norton remonstrated
gently. “We have no right to say so, but you must not be too good,
Diana,” she said. Diana was a puzzle to the people who were so familiar
with her, who felt authorised to find fault with her, to lecture her, to
point out a great many better ways of doing everything. Sophy, indeed,
took upon herself to allow that perhaps dear Diana was a little
eccentric. “But then she is so good! we all love her so!” cried the
little girl, with a certain indulgence and patronage.
Diana was aware of all this, more or less. She knew that they were
conscious of a mild superiority, even while they took everything, and a
degree of importance above all, from her. But she only smiled; they
meant no harm. It was nature. They could not bring out any more than was
in them: they were good, if they were not wise. They meant no harm. And
if her own little world was more puzzled than respectful, the outer
world had a great respect for Diana. She was so rich! What a thing that
is! And if it makes the homeliest persons interesting, how much more
must it do for those who are not homely, who are interesting by gift of
nature? Miss Trelawny was on everybody’s lips--all the more, perhaps,
that she did not drive about constantly, as her companions wished, and
show herself in everybody’s eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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