She was transformed by a dignity which recast her speech and made it self-contained.

She found herself in the sweep of a feeling so large that the immediate loss of a kingdom seemed of little consequence to her.

Even an act which might be construed as disrespect to her father was justified in her eyes, because she was vainly striving to fill out this larger conception of duty.

The test which comes sooner or later to many parents had come to Lear, to maintain the tenderness of the relation between father and child, after that relation had become one between adults, to be content with the responses made by the adult child to the family claim, while at the same time she responded to the claims of the rest of life.

The mind of Lear was not big enough for this test; he failed to see anything but the personal slight involved, and the ingratitude alone reached him.