She needed some play--a thing far more
important to life than a great deal of what is called business
and acquirement. Many a matter, over which grown people look
important, long-faced, and consequential, is folly, compared with
the merest child's frolic, in relation to the true affairs of
existence.
All the time, Letty had not in the least neglected her
houseduties; and, again, her readings with her cousin Godfrey,
since Tom's apparent recession, had begun to revive in interest.
He grew kinder and kinder to her, more and more fatherly.
But the mother, once disquieted, had lost no time in taking
measures. In every direction, secretly, through friends, she was
inquiring after some situation suitable for Letty: she owed it to
herself, she said, to find for the girl the right thing, before
sending her from the house. In the true spirit of benevolent
tyranny, she said not a word to Letty of her design. She had the
chronic distemper of concealment, where Letty had but a feverish
attack. Much false surmise might have been corrected, and much
evil avoided, had she put it in Letty's power to show how gladly
she would leave Thornwick. In the mean time the old lady kept her
lynx-eye upon the young people.
But Godfrey, having caught a certain expression in the said eye,
came to the resolution that thenceforth their schoolroom should
be the common sitting-room.
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