Acutely sensitive as she was to Miss Melody's kind and serious interest in her welfare, it was almost inevitable that she should come to the sorrowful conclusion that Miss Melody, in her vast and tolerant experience, must be correct in her estimate of Lily's self. The thought depressed her.
She lacked backbone, and she was a shirker, squandering all her energies upon fancies that meant nothing.
In a vague and general way, Lily resolved to abjure those fancies and to readjust her scale of relative values so that it should include all that Miss Melody had meant by such words as "keenness"—"a thoroughly English spirit" and "doing everything to the greater honour and glory of God."
VI
The least highly spirited amongst us, however easily cowed by outside influence, seldom finds it easy or desirable to practise meekness when dealing with a near relative at home.
This law, which is a practically invariable one, deserves a candid recognition which it seldom receives.
Certainly it was never openly admitted to exist by Philip Stellenthorpe, whose house furnished a striking example of its workings after Lily had finally returned from Bridgecrap.
At school, she had been the victim of a diffidence engendered in the consciousness of failure.
At home, the consciousness of failure merely roused her to covert and irritable defiance of criticism.