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Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 1851-1920

"Elizabeth's Campaign"

'Now will you tell me, please, about those timber proposals?
I hope to get a few words with the Squire to-night.'
And leaning back in her chair, she listened intently while Captain
Dell, bringing a roll of papers out of his pocket, read her the
draft proposals of a well-known firm of timber merchants, for the
purchase of some of the Squire's outlying woods of oak and beech.
Lights had been brought in, and Elizabeth sat shading her eyes from
the lamp before her,--a strong and yet agreeable figure. Was it the
consciousness of successful work--of opening horizons, and satisfied
ambitions, that had made a physical presence, always attractive, so
much more attractive than before--that had given it a magnetism and
fire it had never yet possessed? Pamela, who was developing fast,
and was acutely conscious of Elizabeth, asked herself the question,
or something like it, about once a week. And during a short
Christmas visit that Elizabeth had paid her own people, her gentle
mother, much puzzled and a little dazzled by her daughter, had
necessarily pondered the why and wherefore of a change she felt, but
could not analyse.


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