rs, and
which flowed on through a hundred petty toilsome duties to the fretful
accompaniment of Susan's iterations and the novel persecution now
carried on by the children, was naturally irksome to the high-spirited
and impatient nature which, now no longer heart-whole or fancy-free, did
not find it so easy to carry its own way triumphantly through those
heavy clogs of helplessness and folly. In the days when Miss Wodehouse
pitied and wondered, Nettie had required no sympathy; she had carried
on her course victorious, more entirely conscious of the supreme
gratification of having her own way than of the utter self-sacrifice
which she made to Fred and his family. But now the time predicted by
Miss Wodehouse had arrived. Nettie's own personal happiness had come to
be at stake, and had been unhesitatingly given up. But the knowledge of
that renunciation dwelt with Nettie. Not all the natural generosity of
her mind--not that still stronger argument which she used so often, the
mere necessity and inevitableness of the case--could blind her eyes to
the fact that she _had_ given up her own happiness; and bitter flashes
of thought would intervene, notwithstanding even the self-contempt and
reproach with which she became aware of them. That doubtful complicated
matter, most hard and difficult of mortal problems, pressed hard upon
Nettie's mind and heart. In former days, when she scornfully denied it
to be self-sacrifice, and laboured on, always indomitable, unconscious
that what she did was anything more than the simplest duty and necessity,
all was well with the dauntless, all-enterprising soul; but growing
knowledge of her own heart, of other hearts, cast dark and perplexing
shades upon Nettie, as upon all other wayfarers, in these complex paths.
The effect upon her mind was different from the effect to be expected
according to modern sentimental ethics. Nettie had never doubted of
the true duty, the true necessity, of her position, till she became
conscious of her vast sacrifice. Then a hundred doubts appalled her. Was
she so entirely _right_ as she had supposed? Was it best to relieve the
helpless hands of Fred and Susan of their natural duties, and bear these
burdens for them, and disable herself, when her time came, from the
nobler natural yoke in which her full womanly influence might have told
to an extent impossible to it now? These questions made Nettie's head,
which knew no fanciful pangs, ache with painful thought, and