She knew very well that it was foolish, unreasonable, but could no more help it than a love-smitten maiden of old Sicily.

It was her hour of possession, and she was struggling with it blindly.
And Elizabeth, the shrewd and clever Elizabeth, saw nothing, and knew nothing.

If she had ever for a passing moment suspected the possibility of 'an affair' between Arthur Chicksands and Pamela, she had ceased to think of it.

The eager projects with which her own thoughts were teeming, had driven out the ordinary preoccupations of womankind.

Derelict farms, the food-production of the county, timber, village reconstruction, war-work of various kinds, what time was there left ?--what room ?--in a mind wrestling with a hundred new experiences, for the guessing of a girl's riddle?
Yet all the same she remained her just and kindly self.