She thinks her very much improved, but complains that she has
lost her home feelings, and cares only for Dykelands; I scarcely know
what she means.'
'I think that I can guess,' said Lady Merton, 'from knowing a little
more of Mrs. Staunton's character. She is a very amiable person, and
has in reality, I believe, plenty of good sense; but she has allowed
herself to fall into an exaggerated style of feeling and expression,
which, I dare say, bewitched a girl like Helen, and now makes her
find home cold and desolate.'
'Like the letter which Mrs. Staunton wrote to you about Rupert, and
which Papa called ecstatic,' said Anne.
'That is an instance of Mrs. Staunton's way of expressing herself,'
said Lady Merton; 'now I will give you one of her acuteness of
feeling, as she calls it. Your Aunt Katherine was her greatest
friend when she was a girl, though I believe the kind epithets she
lavished upon me would have been enough to stock two or three
moderate friendships. We all used to walk together, and spend at
least one evening in the week together. One evening, your aunt, who
had a good deal of the same high careless spirit which you observe in
Lizzie, chanced to make some observation upon the rudeness of sailors
in general, forgetting that Helen Atherley's brother was a sailor.
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