Parents are apt to see no injustice in the
fact that they are often annoyed with their offspring for possessing
attributes, both of character and appearance, with which they
themselves have endowed them.
The hero of Jane's childhood, the chum of her girlhood and the close
friend of her maturer years, was Deryck Brand, only son of the
rector of the parish, and her senior by nearly ten years. But even
in their friendship, close though it was, she had never felt herself
first to him. As a medical student, at home during vacations, his
mother and his profession took precedence in his mind of the lonely
child, whose devotion pleased him and whose strong character and
original mental development interested him. Later on he married a
lovely girl, as unlike Jane as one woman could possibly be to
another; but still their friendship held and deepened; and now, when
he was rapidly advancing to the very front rank of his profession,
her appreciation of his work, and sympathetic understanding of his
aims and efforts, meant more to him than even the signal mark of
royal favour, of which he had lately been the recipient.
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