"It
was her only chance of sleep," she said, when remonstrated with.
She did not look ill, but there was a restless, worn air that was
very distressing on her young features, and was the more piteous to
her relations, that she was just as constrained as ever in her
intercourse with them. She was eagerly attentive to Mrs. Poynsett,
and evidently so anxious to wait on her that Anne left to her many
little services, but if they were alone together, they were tongue-
tied, and never went deeper than surface subjects. Mrs. Poynsett
never discussed her, never criticized her, never attempted to fathom
her, being probably convinced that there was nothing but hard
coldness to be met with by probing. Yet there was something
striking in Cecil's having made people call her Mrs. Raymond
Poynsett, surrendering the Charnock, which she had once brandished
in all their faces, and going by the name by which her husband had
been best known.
To Anne she was passively friendly, and neither gave nor sought
confidences, and Anne was so much occupied with her baby, and all
the little household services that had grown on her, as well as with
her busy husband, that there was little leisure for them; and though
the meeting with Rosamond was at first the most effusive and
affectionate of all, afterwards she seemed to avoid tetes-a-tetes
with her, and was shyer with her than with Anne.
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