Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
It was broad daylight before the entire household at Harrowby was
asleep, but Angela, in the great four-posted bed with curtains and
valance, had fallen asleep--young, healthy being that she was--the
instant her head touched the pillow. The day came dull and quiet, and
no light penetrated the closed shutters and drawn curtains of the large
room in which Angela slept. It was twelve o’clock before she opened
her eyes and then closed them again. She felt a delicious sense of
languor after her hours of dancing and gay excitement, and the large,
soft bed invited continued repose. She could not, however, go to
sleep again. Wandering thoughts of what had happened the night before
stole upon her, and then all at once Neville’s image, his looks, the
pressure of his hand, so different from anything she had ever known,
flashed upon her. She tried to put the thought away and, closing her
eyes resolutely, lay still as a statue with that determination to go
to sleep which always defeats its object. Presently, she sighed and
turned restlessly; there was no more sweet repose for her, she had come
face to face with that insistent passion which questions and demands an
answer.
For the first time in her life the thought of meeting Neville made
her feel shy. She loved him, oh, yes! Better than Richard, better
than Archie! Neville had always been her champion who stood between
her and disappointment, who warded off justice, who always approved
of her, but Neville as a lover, as a husband--for Angela’s vivid mind
traveled quickly--ah! that was different. If she married Neville it
would be like the continuation of a story of which she already knew
the best part. She yearned for life, movement, knowledge, a view of
the great outside world, which to her in imagination appeared far more
fascinating than any world could be, and yet on the threshold she was
to be handed back to settle in the same groove, to see the same faces,
do the same things as she had done all her life. She loved Harrowby
with all her soul, but longed to try her wings in flight. It seemed
as if the great book of life lay open before her, but she could not
be permitted to read any part which she had not already read. Prince
Charming, that other half of her heart and soul, that unknown being
about whom it was so delicious to wonder, would never come to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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