and such hours could be devoted, and the labour would
strengthen her mini Her ignorance she represented
as a great marsh which by toil had to be filled up
and converted into solid ground. She had gone
through the library catalogue and made a list of books
which seemed needful to be read; and Mr. Wyvern had
been of service in guiding her, as well as in lending
volumes from his own shelves. The vicar, indeed,
had surprised her by the zealous kindness with which
he entered into all her plans; at first she had talked
to him with apprehension, remembering that chance
alone had prevented her from appealing to him to save
her from this marriage. But Mr. Wyvern, with whose
philosophy we have some acquaintance, exerted himself
to make the best of the irremediable, and Adela already
owed him much for his unobtrusive moral support.
Even Mutimer was putting aside his suspicions and
beginning to believe that the clergyman would have
openly encouraged Socialism had his position allowed
him to do so. He was glad to see his wife immersed
in grave historical and scientific reading; he said
to himself that in this way she would be delivered
from her religious prejudices, and some day attain
to ‘free thought.’ Adela as yet had
no such end in view, but already she understood that
her education, in the serious sense, was only now
beginning. As a girl, her fate had been that of
girls in general; when she could write without orthographical
errors, and could play by rote a few pieces of pianoforte
music, her education had been pronounced completed.
In the profound moral revolution which her nature
had recently undergone her intellect also shared;
when the first numbing shock had spent itself, she
felt the growth of an intellectual appetite formerly
unknown. Resolutely setting herself to exalt
her husband, she magnified his acquirements, and,
as a duty, directed her mind to the things he deemed
of importance. One of her impulses took the form
of a hope which would have vastly amused Richard had
he divined it. Adela secretly trusted that some
day her knowledge might be sufficient to allow her
to cope with her husband’s religious scepticism.
It was significant that she could face in this way
the great difficulty of her life; the stage at which
it seemed sufficient to iterate creeds was already
behind her. Probably Mr. Wyvern’ 5 conversation
was not without its effect in aiding her to these
larger views, but she never spoke to him on the subject
directly. Her native dignity developed itself
with her womanhood, and one of the characteristics
of the new Adela was a reserve which at times seemed
to indicate coldness or even spiritual pride.