It was also before Elfrida's invasion of the
library and fee-simple of the books, and before she had
said there many things that were original, some that were
impertinent, and a few that were true. The Cardiffs
discussed her less freely as the weeks went on--a sure
sign that she was becoming better liked, accepted less
as a phenomenon, and more as a friend. There grew up in
Janet the beginnings of the strong affection which she
felt for a very few people, an affection which invariably
mingled itself with a lively desire to bestir herself on
their account, to be fully informed as to their
circumstances, and above all to possess relations of
absolute directness with them. She had an imperious
successful strain which insisted upon all this. She was
a capable creature of much perception for twenty-four,
and she had a sense of injury when for any reason she
was not allowed to use her faculties for the benefit of
any one she liked in a way which excited the desire to
do it. Janet had to reproach herself, when she thought
of it, that this sort of liking seldom came by entirely
approved channels, and hardly ever found an object in
her visiting-list. Its first and almost its only essential,
to speak boldly, was an artistic susceptibility with some
sort of relation to her own, which her visiting-list did
not often supply, though it might have been said to
overflow with more widely recognized virtues.
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