33/36 I heard it all." Aunt Amy was deeply moved. Her conceit, her abnormal all-embracing conceit was wounded--yes, even by so insignificant a creature as the Dean's Ernest; but she was also unexpectedly touched. She would have greatly preferred not to be touched, but there it was, she could not help herself. She did not know that, in all her life before, anyone had ever fought for her, and that now of all champions in the world fate should have chosen Jeremy, who was, she had supposed, her enemy--never her defender! And that horrid child of the Dean--she had always disliked him, with his long yellow neck and watery eyes! How dared he say such things about her! He had always been rude to her. |