Читать книгу The Valley of Squinting Windows онлайн

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It struck her now, with another lash of surprise, that it had been an amazingly cheeky thing to have returned to the valley; but, as the shining waters of the lake led her mind into the quiet ways of contemplation, she could not help thinking that she had triumphed well.

To be living here at all with such a husband, and her son away in England preparing for the priesthood, seemed the very queerest, queerest thing. It was true that she held herself up well and had a fine conceit of herself, if you please. The mothers of the neighborhood had, for the most part, chosen to forget the contamination that might have arisen from sending their daughters to a woman like her for their dresses, and, in consequence, she had been enabled to build up this little business. She asserted herself in the ways of assertion which were open to the dwellers in the valley. She attended to her religious duties with admirable regularity. It was not alone that she fulfilled the obligation of hearing Mass on Sundays and Holydays, but also on many an ordinary morning when there was really no need to be so very pious. She went just to show them that she was passionately devoted to religion. Yet her neighbors never once regarded her in the light of a second Mary Magdalene. They entered into competition with her, it was true, for they could not let it be said that Nan Byrne was more religious than they, and so, between them, they succeeded in degrading the Mysteries. But it was the only way that was open to them of showing off their souls.