She kept choking and swallowing all the time that she thought about it. She tried to comfort herself with the idea, that what he imagined her to be, did not alter the fact of what she was. But it was a truism, a phantom, and broke down under the weight of her regret. She had twenty questions on the tip of her tongue to ask Mr. Bell, but not one of them did she utter. Mr. Bell thought that she was tired, and sent her early to her room, where she sate long hours by the open window, gazing out on the purple dome above, where the stars arose, and twinkled and disappeared behind the great umbrageous trees before she went to bed. All night long too, there burnt a little light on earth; a candle in her old bedroom, which was the nursery with the present inhabitants of the parsonage, until the new one was built. A sense of change, of individual nothingness, of perplexity and disappointment, overpowered Margaret. Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability, had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognise it.

She kept choking and swallowing all the time that she thought about it. She tried to comfort herself with the idea that what he imagined her to be, did not alter the fact of what she was. But it was a truism, and broke down under the weight of her regret.
Mr. Bell thought that she was tired, and sent her early to her room. Before she went to bed, she sat long by the open window, gazing out at the stars that arose, twinkled and disappeared behind the great shadows of the trees. She could see a candle burning in her old bedroom, which was now the nursery. A sense of change, of individual nothingness, over-powered her. Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability had given her greater pain than if all had been changed entirely.
