He read to
her, a thing he never did before, and when she misunderstood, he
patiently explained; he took her into his counsels and asked her
opinion; he abandoned his own opinion for hers, and in the presence
of her children he always deferred to her, and delighted to
acknowledge that she knew more than he did, that she was right and he
was wrong. She was now confined to her house, and the end was near,
but this was the most blessed time of her married life. She grew
under the soft rain of his loving care, and opened out, not, indeed,
into an oriental flower, rich in profound mystery of scent and
colour, but into a blossom of the chalk-down. Altogether concealed
and closed she would have remained if it had not been for this
beneficent and heavenly gift poured upon her. He had just time
enough to see what she really was, and then she died. There are some
natures that cannot unfold under pressure or in the presence of
unregarding power. Hers was one. They require a clear space round
them, the removal of everything which may overmaster them, and
constant delicate attention. They require too a recognition of the
fact, which M'Kay for a long time did not recognise, that it is folly
to force them and to demand of them that they shall be what they
cannot be.
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