But the fighting
with Mr. Farebrother must be of a metaphorical kind, which was much
more difficult to Fred than the muscular. Certainly this experience
was a discipline for Fred hardly less sharp than his disappointment
about his uncle's will. The iron had not entered into his soul,
but he had begun to imagine what the sharp edge would be.
It did not once occur to Fred that Mrs. Garth might be mistaken
about Mr. Farebrother, but he suspected that she might be wrong
about Mary. Mary had been staying at the parsonage lately, and her
mother might know very little of what had been passing in her mind.
He did not feel easier when he found her looking cheerful with the
three ladies in the drawing-room. They were in animated discussion
on some subject which was dropped when he entered, and Mary
was copying the labels from a heap of shallow cabinet drawers,
in a minute handwriting which she was skilled in. Mr. Farebrother
was somewhere in the village, and the three ladies knew nothing
of Fred's peculiar relation to Mary: it was impossible for either
of them to propose that they should walk round the garden,
and Fred predicted to himself that he should have to go away without
saying a word to her in private. He told her first of Christy's
arrival and then of his own engagement with her father; and he
was comforted by seeing that this latter news touched her keenly.
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