Complete Project Gutenberg Will

he ladies fell instan

s. Deering, with a ne

ose rooms at th

e, as if to gather plausibility. "The Grand Union

e shall trouble him, after all. Mr. Deering isn'

e was a tone-scene of a toppling hope and

very pleasant, and-I guess I have go

knew what she was thinking of, and I looked at Miss Gage, who had involuntarily taken the pose

ly, forlornly. She had tears in her voice, tea

ion of the matter, I thought it rather heartless of her to go on and r

elped now," re

gain before you go?" Mr

the girl, with a look at

now when we're going." And t

u weren't going to promote their stay, need

? Well, I wanted to ask you fir

at

shall have to have the whole care and responsibility of her, and I wanted you to feel just what you were going in for

g conscience. But I don't believe it will be any such killing matter. Ther

was easier for us to come together, and after making me go to the clerk and find out that he had a vacant room, Mrs. March agreed wi

hen Mrs. Deering suddenly reappeared round our corner

let me come if she had dreamed of such a thing. I do hate so to take her back with me, now that she's begun to have a good time, and I was wondering-wondering whether it would be asking too much if I tried to get her a room here. I shouldn't exactly like to leave her in t

t's a public house, like any oth

e the least bit of trouble to you." The poor thing while she talked stood leaning anxiously ov

d anything that Mr. March and I can do-Why, we had just been talking of it, and Mr. March has this minute got back from s

. Deering. Tears of relief came into her eyes, and she said: "Then I can go home in the morning. I was going to stay

and an understanding that I would arrange it all, and that we would come to Mrs. Deering

hed in a mist of happy tears, "I suppose this is what you call perfectly

D to do it just the same as if Miss Gage h

agical image. "Can s

e up to her. It's probably been the struggle of her life, and I can quite imagine her let

ss Gage's taking it out of her somehow. Now she will take it out of us. I hope you realise that

right thing, the only thing. We couldn't have let that poor creat

N

or girl, too. It would have been cruel, it would have been f

hed mockingly, as the novelists say. "How sick I am of this stale old love-busines

hy, Basil," she asked dreamily, "ha

hy for that stupid girl, in that poor woman in her anxiety about her disappointment, why

mpathise

idn't

d I don't suppose it's anything seriou

ortant who marries who, or whether anybody marries at all. And yet we no sooner have the making of a love-affair within reac

sant time for a few days; and what is the harm of it? Girls have a dull enough time at the very best.

perfectly plain case, and you are going in for a very risky a

into it with my eyes open, I sha

te the pea-nut shells. I've no doubt it was really a more tragical case. They looked dreadfully poor and squalid. Why couldn't I have amused my idle fancy with their fortunes-the sort of husband and father they had, their shabby h

fault. I should never have seen anything in her if it had not been for you. It was your coming back and working

less the breath to protest. I was forced to hear her say again that all her concern from the beginning was for Mrs. Deering, and that now, if she had offered to do something for Miss Gage, it was not because she cared anything fo

cert. Mrs. Deering said that she had to pack, that she did not feel just exactly like going; and my tender heart ached with a knowledge of her distress. Miss Gage made a faint, false pretence of refusing to come with us, too;

The connoisseur patted it a little this way and a

with it on, after a moment's evanescence, and looked at my wife

girl put up her hands to it. "Good gracious! You mustn'

the first fitting moment to say, for sole recognition of our self-sacr

urned an ironical eye upon my wife; bu

to get at first." And she afterward explained that the girl s

ight feeling, was talking to Mrs. Deering, in spite of her not paying much att

erhaps this was best, though it seemed heartless; it may not have been so heartless as it seeme