The Petershof climate had got into her head; and it is a
well-known fact that this glorious air has the effect on some people of
banishing from their minds all inconvenient notions of duty and devotion,
and all memory of the special object of their sojourn in Petershof. The
coolness and calmness with which such people ignore their
responsibilities, or allow strangers to assume them, would be an
occasion for humour, if it were not an opportunity for indignation:
though indeed it would take a very exceptionally sober-minded spectator
not to get some fun out of the blissful self-satisfaction and
unconsciousness which characterize the most negligent of 'caretakers.'
Mrs. Reffold was not the only sinner in this respect. It would have been
interesting to get together a tea-party of invalids alone, and set the
ball rolling about the respective behaviours of their respective friends.
Not a pleasing chronicle: no very choice pages to add to the book of real
life; still, valuable items in their way, representative of the actual as
opposed to the ideal. In most instances there would have been ample
testimony to that cruel monster, known as Neglect.
Bernardine spoke once to the Disagreeable Man on this subject.
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