It
began to force itself upon Sophie that the edifice of their former
relations was not lightly to be rebuilt; and the growth of this
conviction occasioned her to mar her ordinarily serene and justly
harmonized existence with sundry little fits of crying and other
mournful indulgences.
As for Cornelia, if she noticed the estrangement at all, she did not
allow it to occasion her any anxiety. Jealousy and discontent are more
self-absorbing passions than love, and they closed her eyes to whatever
they did not involve. Yet the effect of the estrangement was more
hurtful upon her than upon Sophie; for never had her pure-minded
sister's influence been so needful to her as now, when the very nature
of the malady forbade its being so relieved.
But this afternoon it had so happened that they found themselves
together, on the hill. Each had filled a basket with the most brilliant,
or harmonious, or vividly contrasted colors they could find. They had
emerged from the wood into the clear autumn sunshine which rested upon
the hill-side, and sat down upon a gray knee of rock, encased with crisp
gray and black lichens. Below lay the Parsonage, with its
weather-blackened, shingled roof, and the garden, full of shrubbery,
intersected by winding paths, the fountain in the centre.
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