The verse of
Shelley and the prose of Landor fell upon her ears; it was as though
she had hitherto lived in deafness. Sometimes she had to beg the
reader to pause for that day; her heart and mind seemed overfull;
she could not even speak of these new things, but felt the need of
lying back in twilight to marvel and repeat melodies.
Mrs. Boscobel happened to approach them once whilst this reading was
going on.
'You are educating her?' she said to Stella afterwards.
'Perhaps--a little,' Stella replied absently.
'Isn't it just a trifle dangerous?' suggested the understanding
lady.
'Dangerous? How?'
'The wife of the man who makes sparks fly out of iron? The man who
is on no account to learn anything?'
Stella shook her head, saying, 'You don't know her.'
'I should much like to,' was Mrs. Boscobel's smiling rejoinder.
In Stella's company it did not seem very likely that Adela would
lose her social enthusiasm, yet danger there was, and that precisely
on account of Mrs. Westlake's idealist tendencies. When she spoke of
the toiling multitude, she saw them in a kind of exalted vision; she
beheld them glorious in their woe, ennobled by the tyranny under
which they groaned. She had seen little if anything of the
representative proletarian, and perchance even if she had the
momentary impression would have faded in the light of her burning
soul.
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