What was still more
clear and satisfactory to Freda was, that he made way amongst the
miserable poor.
The ragged school children loved him, and through them, he got at the
hearts of some of their degraded parents. His seemed a labour of love
with every one but her. She received his marked politeness and nothing
more. But he interested her daily. Some new trait of character would
break out--some little touch of deep feeling--some symptom of a highly
sensitive nature, which told her how much he must have felt her cutting
words. He was proud, too, and she liked him for it, although she was
striving to humble her own pride. What would she not have given to have
recalled those words! The Rowland Prothero of London, esteemed and loved
by the wise and good, for his unpretending but strenuous parochial
labours, his clear, forcible, but very simple preaching--was to her
quite a different person from him of Glanyravon Farm, the son of her
father's tenant. In short they were no longer identical. As she was no
longer the heiress of Glanyravon, but simply Miss Gwynne, Mrs. Jones'
friend--so he was Mr. Rowland Prothero, a respectable and respected
London clergyman.
And these are the relations under which they appear, sitting near one
another over the accounts of the ragged school, which Freda has
undertaken to keep.
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