"And whatever curiosity you may feel, will you be content to do me a
kindness--without wanting an explanation?"
"It is my duty to respect my mistress's secrets; I will do my duty." No
sentiment, no offer of respectful sympathy; a positive declaration of
fidelity, left impenetrably to speak for itself. Was the girl's heart
hardened by the disaster which had darkened her life? Or was she the
submissive victim of that inbred reserve, which shrinks from the frank
expression of feeling, and lives and dies self-imprisoned in its own
secrecy? A third explanation, founded probably on a steadier basis, was
suggested by Miss Henley's remembrance of their first interview.
Fanny's nature had revealed a sensitive side, when she was first
encouraged to hope for a refuge from ruin followed perhaps by
starvation and death. Judging so far from experience, a sound
conclusion seemed to follow. When circumstances strongly excited the
girl, there was a dormant vitality in her that revived. At other times
when events failed to agitate her by a direct appeal to personal
interests, her constitutional reserve held the rule. She could be
impenetrably honest, steadily industrious, truly grateful--but the
intuitive expression of feeling, on ordinary occasions, was beyond her
reach.
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