Ruth, too, saw that Jemima was not looking well. How she had
become an object of dislike to her former friend she did not
know; but she was sensible that Miss Bradshaw disliked her now.
She was not aware that this feeling was growing and strengthening
almost into repugnance, for she seldom saw Jemima out of
school-hours, and then only for a minute or two. But the evil
element of a fellow-creature's dislike oppressed the atmosphere
of her life. That fellow-creature was one who had once loved her
so fondly, and whom she still loved, although she had learnt to
fear her, as we fear those whose faces cloud over when we come in
sight--who cast unloving glances at us, of which we, though not
seeing, are conscious, as of some occult influence; and the cause
of whose dislike is unknown to us, though every word and action
seems to increase it. I believe that this sort of dislike is only
shown by the jealous, and that it renders the disliker even more
miserable, because more continually conscious than the object;
but the growing evidences of Jemima's feeling made Ruth very
unhappy at times. This very May, too, an idea had come into her
mind, which she had tried to repress--namely, that Mr. Farquhar
was in love with her. It annoyed her extremely; it made her
reproach herself that she ever should think such a thing
possible. She tried to strangle the notion, to drown it, to
starve it out by neglect--its existence caused her such pain and
distress.
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