itching gauzes.
She read his unwritten doubt, and therefore expected her unwritten misery
to be read.

So it is when you play at Life! When you will not go straight, you get
into this twisting maze. Now he wrote coldly, and she had to repress a
feeling of resentment at that also. She ascribed the changes of his tone
fundamentally to want of faith in her, and absolutely, during the
struggle she underwent, she by this means somehow strengthened her idea
of her own faithfulness. She would have phrased her projected line of
conduct thus: "I owe every appearance of assent to my poor father's
scheme, that will spare his health. I owe him everything, save the
positive sacrifice of my hand." In fact, she meant to do her duty to her
father up to the last moment, and then, on the extreme verge, to remember
her duty to her lover. But she could not write it down, and tell her
lover as much. She knew instinctively that, facing the eyes, it would not
look well. Perhaps, at another season, she would have acted and thought
with less folly; but the dull pain of her great uncertainty, and the
little stinging whips daily applied to her, exaggerated her tendency to
self-deception. "Who has ever had to bear so much?--what slave?" she
would exclaim, as a refuge from the edge of his veiled irony. For a slave
has, if not selection of what he will eat and drink, the option of
rejecting what is distasteful. Cornelia had not. She had to act a part
every day with Mrs. Chump, while all those she loved, and respected, and
clung to, were in the same conspiracy. The consolation of hating, or of
despising, her tormentress was denied. The thought that the poor helpless
creature had been possibly ruined by them, chastened Cornelia's
reflections mightily, and taught her to walk very humbly through the
duties of the day. Her powers of endurance were stretched to their
utmost. A sublime affliction would, as she felt bitterly, have enlarged
her soul. This sordid misery narrowed it. Why did not her lover, if his
love was passionate, himself cut the knot claim her, and put her to a
quick decision? She conceived that were he to bring on a supreme crisis,
her heart would declare itself. But he appeared to be wanting in that
form of courage. Does it become a beggar to act such valiant parts?
perhaps he was even then replying from his stuffy lodgings.

The Spring was putting out primroses,--the first handwriting of the
year,--as Sir Purcell wrote to er prettily.