“She took the chance of his casting her off.”
“She knew he wouldn’t. She knew him, and she knew you. She knew that if he cast her off--”
His mother did not say it, or anything more, then. Late at night she came to him. “Are you asleep, Philip?”
“I didn’t suppose you were. But I have had a note to-day which I must answer. Mrs. Andrews has asked us to dinner on Saturday. Philip, if you could see that sweet girl as I do, in all her goodness and sincerity--”
“I think I do, mother. And I wouldn’t be guilty of her unhappiness for the world. You must decline.”
“Well, perhaps you are right.” Mrs. Verrian went away, softly, sighing. As she sealed her reply to Mrs. Andrews, she sighed again, and made the reflection which a mother seldom makes with regard to her son, before his marriage, that men do not love women for their goodness.
Almost incomparably ignorant woman Almost to die of hunger for something to happen Belief of immortality--without one jot of evidence Brave in the right time and place Continuity becomes the instinctive expectation Found her too frankly disputatious Girls who were putting on the world as hard as they could If there’s wrong done the penalty doesn’t right it Never wanted a holiday so much as the day after you had one Personal view of all things and all persons which women take Proof against the stupidest praise Read too many stories to care for the plot She laughed too much and too loud Sick people are terribly, egotistical The fad that fails is extinguished forever Timidity is at the bottom of all fondness for secrecy
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fennel and Rue, by William Dean Howells