her round out of some wilful mood—­and such moods were common enough now!  Frequently she was sullenly indifferent to the feelings of others—­not from any unkindness, but because her heart seemed numb and stony, and incapable of sympathy.  Then afterwards her self-reproach was terrible—­in the dead of night when no one saw it.  With a strange perversity, the only intelligence she cared to hear, the only sights she cared to see, were the circumstances which gave confirmation to the idea that Mr. Farquhar was thinking of Ruth for a wife.  She craved with stinging curiosity to hear something of their affairs every day; partly because the torture which such intelligence gave was almost a relief from the deadness of her heart to all other interests.

And so spring (gioventu dell’anno) came back to her, bringing all the contrasts which spring alone can bring to add to the heaviness of the soul.  The little winged creatures filled the air with bursts of joy; the vegetation came bright and hopefully onwards, without any check of nipping frost.  The ash-trees in the Bradshaws’ garden were out in leaf by the middle of May, which that year wore more the aspect of summer than most Junes do.  The sunny weather mocked Jemima, and the unusual warmth oppressed her physical powers.  She felt very weak and languid; she was acutely sensible that no one else noticed her want of strength; father, mother, all seemed too full of other things to care, if, as she believed, her life was waning.  She herself felt glad that it was so.  But her delicacy was not unnoticed by all.  Her mother often anxiously asked her husband if he did not think Jemima was looking ill; nor did his affirmation to the contrary satisfy her, as most of his affirmations did.  She thought every morning, before she got up, how she could tempt Jemima to eat, by ordering some favourite dainty for dinner; in many other little ways she tried to minister to her child; but the poor girl’s own abrupt irritability of temper had made her mother afraid of openly speaking to her about her health.

Ruth, too, saw that Jemima was not looking well.  How she had become an object of dislike to her former friend she did not know; but she was sensible that Miss Bradshaw disliked her now.  She was not aware that this feeling was growing and strengthening almost into repugnance, for she seldom saw Jemima out of school-hours, and then only for a minute or two.  But the evil element of a fellow-creature’s dislike oppressed the atmosphere of her life.  That fellow-creature was one who had once loved her so fondly, and whom she still loved, although she had learnt to fear her, as we fear those whose faces cloud over when we come in sight—­who cast unloving glances at us, of which we, though not seeing, are conscious, as of some occult influence; and the cause of whose dislike is unknown to us, though every word and action seems to increase it.  I believe that this sort of dislike is only shown by the jealous,