, etc., etc.
"There is time to change your mind and advise your mother," Lady Loring
remarked with grave irony as she returned the letter.
"Don't even speak of it!" said Stella. "I really know no life that I
should not prefer to the life that my mother is enjoying at this moment.
What should I have done, Adelaide, if you had not offered me a happy
refuge in your house? _My_ 'earthly Paradise' is here, where I am
allowed to dream away my time over my drawings and my books, and to
resign myself to poor health and low spirits, without being dragged
into society, and (worse still) threatened with that 'medical advice'
in which, when she isn't threatened with it herself, my poor dear mother
believes so implicitly. I wish you would hire me as your 'companion,'
and let me stay here for the rest of my life."
Lady Loring's bright face became grave while Stella was speaking.
"My dear," she said kindly, "I know well how you love retirement, and
how differently you think and feel from other young women of your age.
And I am far from forgetting what sad circumstances have encouraged the
natural bent of your disposition.
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