And with Nesta's present enlightenment by dusky beams, upon her parentage, she listened abjectly to Dudley, or the opinion of the majority. Would he not say or think, that her clinging to Mrs. Marsett put them under a kind of common stamp, or gave the world its option to class them together?
These were among the ideas chasing in a head destined to be a battle- field for the enrichment of a harvest-field of them, while the girl's face was hidden on Dorothea's lap, and her breast heaved and heaved.
She distressed them when she rose, by saying she must instantly see her mother.
They saw the pain their hesitation inflicted, and Dorothea said: 'Yes, dear; any day you like.'
'To-morrow—I must go to her to-morrow!'
A suggestion of her mother's coming down, was faintly spoken by one lady, echoed in a quaver by the other.
Nesta shook her head. To quiet the kind souls, she entreated them to give their promise that they would invite her again.
Imagining the Hon. Dudley to have cast her off, both ladies embraced her: not entirely yielding-up their hearts to her, by reason of the pernicious new ideas now in the world to sap our foundations of morality; which warned them of their duty to uphold mentally his quite justifiable behaviour, even when compassionating the sufferings of the guiltless creature loved by them.