Pansy was dear to her, and there was nothing else in
her life that had the rightness of the young creature's attachment
or the sweetness of her own clearness about it. It was like a soft
presence-like a small hand in her own; on Pansy's part it was more
than an affection-it was a kind of ardent coercive faith. On her own
side her sense of the girl's dependence was more than a pleasure; it
operated as a definite reason when motives threatened to fail her. She
had said to herself that we must take our duty where we find it, and
that we must look for it as much as possible. Pansy's sympathy was a
direct admonition; it seemed to say that here was an opportunity,
not eminent perhaps, but unmistakeable. Yet an opportunity for what
Isabel could hardly have said; in general, to be more for the child
than the child was able to be for herself. Isabel could have smiled,
in these days, to remember that her little companion had once been
ambiguous, for she now perceived that Pansy's ambiguities were
simply her own grossness of vision. She had been unable to believe any
one could care so much-so extraordinarily much-to please. But since
then she had seen this delicate faculty in operation, and now she knew
what to think of it.
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