[The Duke’s Children by Anthony Trollope]@TWC D-Link bookThe Duke’s Children CHAPTER II 11/22
But she knew also,--no one knew better,--that the judgment of men and women does not always run parallel with facts.
She entertained, too, a conviction in regard to herself, that hard words and hard judgments were to be expected from the world,--were to be accepted by her without any strong feeling of injustice,--because she had been elevated by chance to the possession of more good things than she had merited.
She weighed all this with a very fine balance, and even after the encouragement she had received from the Duke, was intent on confining herself to some position about the girl inferior to that which such a friend as Lady Cantrip might have occupied.
But the girl's manner, and the girl's speech about her own mother, overcame her.
It was the unintentional revelation of the Duchess's constant reference to her,--the way in which Lady Mary would assert that "Mamma used always to say this of you; mamma always knew that you would think so and so; mamma used to say that you had told her." It was the feeling thus conveyed, that the mother who was now dead had in her daily dealings with her own child spoken of her as her nearest friend, which mainly served to conquer the deference of manner which she had assumed. Then gradually there came confidences,--and at last absolute confidence.
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