“Winifred,” said Miss Norreys again, “I have a great deal more to say to you—to tell you. But it would be such a satisfaction to me, and what matters infinitely more, to yourself afterwards, always—if you could now, without any further reason, try to see where your real duties lie.”
“I will try,” said Winifred, “but,” and at last the tears rose in her eyes, “I did so long for a wider, a fuller life.”
“You cannot have found the petty detail and often wearisome round of work at — Street very widening or inspiriting surely.”
“No, but I thought that would come. I was beginning to feel that something depended on me, that I had a post—a place. And I like the feeling of ‘London,’” she added naïvely.
Hertha smiled.
“Yes,” she said, “I know that, and you may still have it. I think you should be more in London than you have been.”
“There is Celia, too,” exclaimed Winifred.
“I am not forgetting her. But about yourself—you have put it in words. It is the sense of responsibility about home duties that has been wanting, and has made them unattractive and irksome. That will come, if you set your shoulder to the wheel. You will soon see that, as I do believe is the case, you will be able to do the work better than it has ever been done, and new developments and possibilities would open out. Why, with the experience you have acquired, you might work into the society’s hands down here—you might have a convalescent home, or a children’s holiday home.”
Winifred’s melancholy face brightened a little.
“I will think about it all,” she repeated, “and I will write anything you like to the society, or—but I hate troubling you—would not the best thing be for you to write to Mr Montague? And now, have you told me everything?”