She had lived in a world of books, and she had burst through
that bondage and come out into a wider and a freer land.
New sorts of interests came into her life. What she had lost in
strength, she had gained in tenderness. Her very manner was gentler,
her mode of speech less assertive. At least, this was the criticism of
those who had liked her but little before her illness.
"She has learnt," they said amongst themselves. And they were not
scholars. They _knew_.
These, two or three of them, drew her nearer to them. She was alone
there with the old man, and, though better, needed care. They mothered
her as well as they could, at first timidly, and then with that sweet
despotism which is for us all an easy yoke to bear. They were drawn to
her as they had never been drawn before. They felt that she was no
longer analysing them, weighing them in her intellectual balance, and
finding them wanting; so they were free with her now, and revealed to
her qualities at which she had never guessed before.
As the days went on, Zerviah began to notice that things were somehow
different. He found some flowers near his table. He was reading about
Nero at the time; but he put aside his Gibbon, and fondled the flowers
instead.
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