George MacDonald

Adela Cathcart George MacDonald

I confess I was a little dismayed to find what a solemn turn the club-stories had taken. But thisdismay lasted for a moment only; for I saw that Adela was deeply interested, again wearing the lookthat indicates abstracted thought and feeling. I said to myself: "This is very different mental fare from what you have been used to, Adela."But she seemed able to mark, learn, and inwardly digest it, for she had the appearance of one whois stilled by the strange newness of her thoughts. I was sure that she was now experiencing aconsciousness of existence quite different from anything she had known before. But it had a curiousoutcome. For, when the silence began to grow painful, no one daring to ask a question, and Mrs. Cathcarthad resumed her knitting, Adela suddenly rose, and going to the piano, struck a few chords, andbegan to sing. The song was one of Heine's strange, ghost-dreams, so unreal in everything butfeeling, and therefore, as dreams, so true. Why did she choose such a song after what we had beenlistening to? I accounted for it by the supposition that, being but poorly provided as far as variety inmusic went, this was the only thing suggested to her by the tone of the paper, and, therefore, thenearest she could come to it. It served, however, to make a change and a transition; which was, as Ithought, very desirable, lest any of the company should be scared from attending the club; and Iresolved that I would divert the current, next time, if I could