Christian fiction; Wingfold, Thomas (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
Something in this way she ran on with her story, but I fail to approach
the charm of her telling. Her narrative was almost childish in its
utterance, but childlike in its insight. What could have moved her so to
confide in a stranger and a workman? In truth, she needed little moving;
her nature was to trust everybody; but there were not many to whom she
could talk. Miss Brown helped her with no response; to her parents she
had no impulse to speak; the young people she met stared at the least
allusion to the wild ways of her past life, making her feel she was not
one of them. Even Arthur Lestrange had more than once looked awkward at
a remark she happened to make! So, instead of confiding in any of them,
that is, letting her heart go in search of theirs, she had taken to
amusing them, and in this succeeded so thoroughly as to be an immense
favourite--which, however, did not make her happy, did not light up the
world within her. Hence it was no great wonder that, being such as she
was, she should feel drawn to Richard. He was the first man she had even
begun to respect. In her humility she found him every way her superior.
It was wonderful to her that he should know so much about books, the way
people made them, what they meant, and how mistakes got into them, and
went from one generation to another: they were his very friends! She
thought it was his love for books that had made him a bookbinder, as
indeed it was his love for them that had made him a book-mender. Her
heart and mind were free from many social prejudices. She knew that
people looked down upon men who did things with their hands; but she had
done so many things herself with her hands, and been so much obliged to
others who could do things with their hands better than she, that
she felt the superiority of such whose hands were their own perfect
servants, and ready to help others as well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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