Her father might have struck up an
acquaintanceship with some member of that family through the
privet-hedge, or a stranger to the neighbourhood might have
wandered thither.
Well, there was no necessity for disturbing him.
And it seemed that, after all, Stephen had not yet made his
desired communication to her father. Again she went indoors,
wondering where Stephen could be. For want of something better to
do, she went upstairs to her own little room. Here she sat down
at the open window, and, leaning with her elbow on the table and
her cheek upon her hand, she fell into meditation.
It was a hot and still August night. Every disturbance of the
silence which rose to the dignity of a noise could be heard for
miles, and the merest sound for a long distance. So she remained,
thinking of Stephen, and wishing he had not deprived her of his
company to no purpose, as it appeared. How delicate and sensitive
he was, she reflected; and yet he was man enough to have a private
mystery, which considerably elevated him in her eyes. Thus,
looking at things with an inward vision, she lost consciousness of
the flight of time.
Strange conjunctions of circumstances, particularly those of a
trivial everyday kind, are so frequent in an ordinary life, that
we grow used to their unaccountableness, and forget the question
whether the very long odds against such juxtaposition is not
almost a disproof of it being a matter of chance at all.
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