Every now and then she felt a little lonely; when, for example, she
read one or two books which were particularly her own; when she
thought of her dead father and mother, and when she prayed her
solitary prayer. Mr Hopgood took great pains never to disturb that
sacred moment. Indeed, he never for an instant permitted a finger to
be laid upon what she considered precious. He loved her because she
had the strength to be what she was when he first knew her and she
had so fascinated him. He would have been disappointed if the
mistress of his youth had become some other person, although the
change, in a sense, might have been development and progress. He did
really love her piety, too, for its own sake. It mixed something
with her behaviour to him and to the children which charmed him, and
he did not know from what other existing source anything comparable
to it could be supplied. Mrs Hopgood seldom went to church. The
church, to be sure, was horribly dead, but she did not give that as a
reason. She had, she said, an infirmity, a strange restlessness
which prevented her from sitting still for an hour. She often
pleaded this excuse, and her husband and daughters never, by word or
smile, gave her the least reason to suppose that they did not believe
her.
CHAPTER II
Both Clara and Madge went first to an English day-school, and Clara
went straight from this school to Germany, but Madge's course was a
little different.
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