It was not possible to be free of the legal difficulties
under at least a year, and plans of drainage might be impeded for
want of other people's consent. Even if all had been smooth, the
sacrifice of income, by destroying Tibb's Alley, and reducing the
number of cottages, would be considerable. Meantime, the inspection
had brought to light worse iniquities and greater wretchedness than
Mr. Kendal had imagined, and his eagerness to set to work was
tenfold. His table was heaped with sanitary reports, and his fits of
abstraction were over the components of bad air or builder's
estimates.
It only depended on Ulick to have resumed his intimacy at Willow
Lawn; but the habit once broken was not resumed. He was often there,
but never without invitation; and he was not always to be had. He
had less leisure, he was senior clerk, and the junior was dull and
untrained; and he often had work to do far into the evening. He
looked bright and well, as though possessed of a sense of being
valuable in his own place, more conducive to happiness than even
congeniality of employment; and Sophy, though now and then
disappointed at his non-appearance, always had a good reason for it,
and continued to justify Mr. Dusautoy's boast that the air of the
hill had made another woman of her.
Visiting cards had, of course, come in numbers to Willow Lawn, but
Albinia seemed to have caught her husband's aversions, and it would
be dangerous to say how long it was before she lashed herself into
setting off for a round of calls.
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