The Scarlet Shawl — Richard Jefferies

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 Excerpt: ...difficulties that the heroine was in. Had he, Percival, been her lover, it would have been different. He would have upset the whole thing in a moment, and put all right. He had no patience with such a lack of common sense. But then people were so ignorant, so feebleminded; they let others lead them astray so easily, and never had a will of their own. A good deal was owing to want of experience. It was astonishing how much he could see through now his eyes were opened. He could not be blinded again as Nora had blinded him. If ever he fell in love again, he would never do as he had done towards her. He would never give up his own ideas, his own feelings, his own judgment and pleasures, for the sake of the feebler judgment, the weaker ideas of a girl. He would just say marry me, and have it done at once. If she did not choose to do so, never mind, it did not matter. He need not trouble himself; that was her look out. How fearfully in the days gone by he had laboured at deteriorating his own value He had done everything he possibly could to depreciate himself. He saw it clearly now. All this attempt to please, this yielding up of his own views to Nora (witness the graceful kindness with which he permitted her to go to St. Leonards), simply tended to make her think that he was nobody, that she could do anything with him. How thankful he was that he had come to London; how providential it was that he had met Pauline Ah, Pauline There was no feebleness about her; all was nature in its grandest development. The rich ripeness of her figure was only equalled by the ripeness of her mind. How childish the girls of the period appeared compared with her They might well be jealous. His face flushed a little as he remembered some remark of hers which seemed to indicate...