"No. Do I not still cling to a hope that Charles may yet appear? and if he do so, it will assuredly be in this neighbourhood, which he knows is native and most dear to us all."
"True."
"Then do I wish to make some sort of parade, in the way of publicity, of our leaving the Hall."
"Yes, yes."
"And yet not go far. In the neighbouring town, for example, surely we might find some means of living entirely free from remark or observation as to who or what we were."
"That, sister, I doubt. If you seek for that species of solitude which you contemplate, it is only to be found in a desert."
"A desert?"
"Yes; or in a large city."
"Indeed!"
"Ay, Flora; you may well believe me, that it is so. In a small community you can have no possible chance of evading an amount of scrutiny which would very soon pierce through any disguise you could by any possibility assume."