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ROMANCE AND REALITY.
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Arundel might have been made a great deal of, but she had been so badly brought up."

The morning was raw and comfortless, as if Winter, just awakened from his sleep by an east wind, had started up in that unamiable mood which is the mood of most when untimely disturbed in their slumbers; and March, which, the day before, had seemed softening into April, was again chilled into January. Emily's health and habits were equally delicate; and a wet, cold walk was to her sufficiently distasteful, without the visit at the end: however, she summoned her resolution and her cloak, and set forth. She walked up the neatest of gravel walks, edged by box, where there was not a leaf out of place, and a turf whose silken smoothness seemed unconscious of a tread; as Mrs. Clarke justly observed, "It was such a comfort to have no children to run over it." She paused on the cleanest of steps; a lad in pepper-and-salt livery opened the door; and she entered the hall and an atmosphere of most savoury soup, where she seemed likely to remain—for the boy stood debating between his right hand and his left, evidently quite undecided whether he was to show her to the drawing or dining-room. This mental debate was,