Sublime

She was thoroughly charming to him, but of course he theorized a little about his attachment. He was made of excellent human dough, and had the rare merit of knowing that his talents, even if let loose, would not set the smallest stream in the country on fire: hence he liked the prospect of a wife to whom he could say, ‘What shall we do?’ about thi

Viola imposed upon her lover but a short probation. They were married, as was becoming, with great privacy, – almost with secrecy, – in the hope perhaps, as was waggishly remarked at the time, that the late Mrs Lloyd wouldn’t hear of it.

then the man she left it for kept her dependent on an allowance from him, and even though his death could have made her rich again, she had rejected

She would be wife or servant, perhaps both.

The baby woke up a few times a night to be fed, and Julia and Alice would fall right back asleep afterward, but William was often unable to. He would listen to Julia breathe, more deeply than she used to, as if she needed more air now.

than she was, by three or four years, perhaps; and she had hair of a colour Ama had never seen before – a tawny fairness like a lion’s.

Among the young men their friends and neighbours, the belle jeunesse of the Colony, there were many excellent fellows, several devoted swains, and some two or three who enjoyed the reputation of universal charmers and conquerors. But the home-bred arts and the somewhat boisterous gallantry of those honest young colonists were completely eclipsed by