“I think Margaret ought to settle what you do with your boots,” said Richard, not much to Flora’s satisfaction.
“It is the same,” she said. “If I approve, Margaret will not object.”
“How well you helped us out, Flora,” said Ethel; “I did not know in the least what to say.”
“It will be the best way of testing her sincerity, said Flora; and at least it will do the child good; but I congratulate you on the promising aspect of Cocksmoor.”
“We did not expect to find a perfect place,” said Ethel; “if it were, it would be of no use to go to it.”
Ethel could answer with dignity, but her heart sank at the aspect of what she had undertaken. She knew there would be evil, but she had expected it in a more striking and less disagreeable form.
That walk certainly made her less impatient, though it did not relax her determination, nor the guard over her lion and bear, which her own good feeling, aided by Margaret’s council, showed her were the greatest hindrances to her doing anything good and great.
Though she was obliged to set to work so many principles and reflections to induce herself to wipe a pen, or to sit straight on her chair, that it was like winding up a steam-engine to thread a needle; yet the work was being done—she was struggling with her faults, humbled by them, watching them, and overcoming them.
Flora, meanwhile, was sitting calmly down in the contemplation of the unexpected services she had rendered, confident that her character for energy and excellence was established, believing it herself, and looking back on her childish vanity and love of domineering as long past and conquered. She thought her grown-up character had begun, and was too secure to examine it closely.