"Why is it? What is it? I wonder."
She was sitting on one of the stone seats cut in the wall of the
terrace, leaning back to look across the woods. The morning sun flooded
this part of the terrace with golden light, the perfume of flowers was
heavy in the air. From the woods came a great song of birds; in the
water below her a fish jumped at intervals--a cool sound on a hot day.
She had this part of the terrace to herself for a little while, but from
another part, round an angle of the house, came the murmur of voices and
sometimes laughter, now a man's, now a woman's. It had all been just the
same before, many, many times, yet now the girl was conscious of a sound
of discord in it. Nothing had really changed. The Abbey was full of
guests, as her uncle loved to have it, many of the same guests who came
so constantly, many of those who had been her companions at Lady
Bolsover's, and yet the world seemed changed somehow. The reason must
lie in herself. Her visit to London had brought enlightenment to her,
although she had only a vague idea of its meaning. She found it
difficult not to shrink from some of her uncle's guests, a feeling she
had not experienced until now.
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