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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: utterly impossible for her. Absolute directness was a part of
her nature; she could die, but not manouvre.
It actually diminished Hope's hold on Philip, that she had at
this time the whole field to herself. Emilia had gone for a
few weeks to the mountains, with the household of which she was
a guest. An ideal and unreasonable passion is strongest in
absence, when the dream is all pure dream, and safe from the
discrepancies of daily life. When the two girls were together,
Emilia often showed herself so plainly Hope's inferior, that it
jarred on Philip's fine perceptions. But in Emilia's absence
the spell of temperament, or whatever else brought them
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