There was something dead in her life, and her
duty was to try and fill the void. Catherine recognised this duty to
the utmost; she had a great disapproval of brooding and moping. She
had, of course, no faculty for quenching memory in dissipation; but
she mingled freely in the usual gaieties of the town, and she became
at last an inevitable figure at all respectable entertainments. She
was greatly liked, and as time went on she grew to be a sort of
kindly maiden aunt to the younger portion of society. Young girls
were apt to confide to her their love affairs (which they never did
to Mrs. Penniman), and young men to be fond of her without knowing
why. She developed a few harmless eccentricities; her habits, once
formed, were rather stiffly maintained; her opinions, on all moral
and social matters, were extremely conservative; and before she was
forty she was regarded as an old-fashioned person, and an authority
on customs that had passed away. Mrs. Penniman, in comparison, was
quite a girlish figure; she grew younger as she advanced in life.
She lost none of her relish for beauty and mystery, but she had
little opportunity to exercise it. With Catherine's later wooers she
failed to establish relations as intimate as those which had given
her so many interesting hours in the society of Morris Townsend.
These gentlemen had an indefinable mistrust of her good offices, and
they never talked to her about Catherine's charms.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246