What Necessity Knows by Lily Dougall
page 120 of 550 (21%)
page 120 of 550 (21%)
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school, had been greatly improved since it had come under his hand, and
the disinterestedness of his unpaid ministrations was greatly lauded. He was a very busy, and a successful, man, much esteemed by all who knew him. The New College was expected to become a university; Robert Trenholme hoped for this and expected to remain at its head, but this hope of his was by the way; he did not think of it often, for he loved work for its own sake. Even the value he set on his present success was not often, more actively in his mind than the value he set on the fresh air he breathed. It was very occasionally that the pride of him came to the surface, and then chiefly when animated by the memory of the time when he had been at a disadvantage in worldly things. Such memories came to him when he prepared to go to the railway station to meet the Rexfords. He concealed it perfectly, but it gave him certain swellings of heart to think that Miss Rexford would now gradually see all to which he had attained. When Captain Rexford had decided upon buying a farm at Chellaston, he had had some correspondence with Principal Trenholme on the subject, having been put into communication with him by the widow of the relative at whose house Sophia and Trenholme had first met. This was the whole extent of the acquaintance. Of Sophia's step-mother and her numerous children Robert Trenholme knew nothing, save that a second family existed. Nor did Captain Rexford imagine that his eldest daughter had any distinct remembrance of a man whom she had so casually known. Fathers are apt to assume that they know the precise extent of their daughters' acquaintanceships, for the same reason that most people assume that what they never heard of does not exist. Yet when Trenholme actually repaired to the station at the hour at which Captain Rexford had announced his arrival, it was a fact that many of his leisure thoughts for a month back had been pointing forward, like so many |
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