She could not conceive the vast license the creative energy allows itself in mingling the instincts which, after long conflict, may come into harmonious adjustment.

The flash which Myrtle's eye had caught from the gleam of the golden bracelet filled Bathsheba with a sudden fear that she was like to be led away by the vanities of that world lying in wickedness of which the minister's daughter had heard so much and seen so little.
Not that Bathsheba made any fine moral speeches, to herself.

She only felt a slight shock, such as a word or a look from one we love too often gives us,--such as a child's trivial gesture or movement makes a parent feel,--that impalpable something which in the slightest possible inflection of a syllable or gradation of a tone will sometimes leave a sting behind it, even in a trusting heart.

This was all.

But it was true that what she saw meant a great deal.