Page:Gissing - The Emancipated, vol. I, 1890.djvu/118

110 bringing her to a modification of this estimate.

"I am convinced, Ned, that her thoughts are not so constantly at Bartles as we imagine. In any case, I begin to understand what she suffers from most. It is want of occupation for her mind. She is crushed with ennui"

"This is irreverence. As well attribute ennui to the Prophet Jeremiah meditating woes to come."

"I allow you your joke, hut I am right for all that. She has nothing to think about that profoundly interests her; her books are all but as sapless to her as to you or me. She is sinking into melancholia."

"But, my dear girl, the chapel!"

"She only pretends to think of it. Miriam is becoming a hypocrite; I have noted several little signs of it since Cecily came. She poses—and in wretchedness. Please to recollect that her age is four and twenty."