"I hope you do not regret it."
"On the contrary, I am as happy as the moments are long."
"My fine girl!"
"I am happy because I love him. I have always loved him. You have
known that."
"Indeed, no."
"But I have, after my fashion. I am not tumultuous, as he calls
himself. Since he began to make eyes at me when he was nineteen--"
"Fancy Oswald making eyes!"
"Oh, he did, and mouths too. But from the beginning, when I was a
child, I have known that he was dangerous, and I have thought that
he would pass on and forget me after a while. And I could have lived
without him. Nay, there have been moments when I thought I could
learn to love some one else."
"Poor Phineas, for instance."
"We will mention no names. Mr. Appledom, perhaps, more likely. He
has been my most constant lover, and then he would be so safe! Your
brother, Laura, is dangerous. He is like the bad ice in the parks
where they stick up the poles. He has had a pole stuck upon him ever
since he was a boy."
"Yes;--give a dog a bad name and hang him."
"Remember that I do not love him a bit the less on that
account;--perhaps the better. A sense of danger does not make me
unhappy, though the threatened evil may be fatal. I have entered
myself for my forlorn hope, and I mean to stick to it.
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