And she was in a listening and dreaming
mood--one of the moods in which bird, leaf, and wind, sun, shade, and
scent of growing things have part.
And yet her thoughts were of mundane things.
It was on this avenue that G. Selden had met with his accident. He was
still at Dunstan vicarage, and yesterday Mount Dunstan, in calling, had
told them that Mr. Penzance was applying himself with delighted interest
to a study of the manipulation of the Delkoff.
The thought of Mount Dunstan brought with it the thought of her father.
This was because there was frequently in her mind a connection between
the two. How would the man of schemes, of wealth, and power almost
unbounded, regard the man born with a load about his neck--chained
to earth by it, standing in the midst of his hungering and thirsting
possessions, his hands empty of what would feed them and restore their
strength? Would he see any solution of the problem? She could
imagine his looking at the situation through his gaze at the man, and
considering both in his summing up.
"Circumstances and the man," she had heard him say. "But always the man
first."
Being no visionary, he did not underestimate the power of circumstance.
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