CHAPTER XIV: FLORIMEL


That night Florimel had her thoughts as well as Malcolm. Already
life was not what it had been to her, and the feeling of a difference
is often what sets one a-thinking first. While her father lived,
and the sureness of his love overarched her consciousness with a
heaven of safety, the physical harmony of her nature had supplied
her with a more than sufficient sense of well being. Since his death,
too, there had been times when she even fancied an enlargement of
life in the sense of freedom and power which came with the knowledge
of being a great lady, possessed of the rare privilege of an ancient
title and an inheritance which seemed to her a yet greater wealth
than it was. But she had soon found that, as to freedom, she had
less of that than before--less of the feeling of it within her:
not much freedom of any sort is to be had without fighting for it,
and she had yet to discover that the only freedom worth the name
--that of heart, and soul, and mind--is not to be gained except
through the hardest of battles. She was very lonely, too. Lady
Bellair had never assumed with her any authority, and had always
been kind even to petting, but there was nothing about her to make
a home for the girl's heart. She felt in her no superiority, and
for a spiritual home that is essential. As she learned to know her
better, this sense of loneliness went on deepening, for she felt
more and more that her guardian was not one in whom she could place
genuine confidence, while yet her power over her was greater than
she knew. The innocent nature of the girl had begun to recoil from
what she saw in the woman of the world, and yet she had in herself
worldliness enough to render her fully susceptible of her influences.