It was a mystery to her how she had been so intensely stupid
as not to understand it at first. And when she found a copy of her own
answer to it among her papers--one she had thrown aside on account of
a big blot--she wondered if it was possible she had sent such a thing,
and tears of shame and regret stood in her eyes. "How frightfully
blind I was!" she said to herself. But there was no help for it: the
thing was done, and could not be undone. She had grown in wisdom since
then, but most people reach wisdom through ignorance and folly.
In these circumstances she found Miss Adamson a very valuable friend.
Miss Adamson had never shared Lady Arthur's low estimate of Mr.
Eildon: she liked his sweet, unworldly nature, and she had a regard
for him as having aims both lower and higher than a "career." That
he should love Miss Garscube seemed to her natural and good, and
that happiness might be possible even to a duke's grandson on such a
pittance as two thousand pounds a year was an article of her belief:
she pitied people who go through life sacrificing the substance for
the shadow.
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