Without Lifting A Finger

"She's going to stick, by Jove! she's going to stick." "Do you mean that she is going to marry him?" Mrs. Almond inquired. "I don't know that; but she is not going to break down. She is going to drag out the engagement, in the hope of making me relent." "And shall you not relent?" "Shall a geometrical proposition relent? I am not so superficial." "Doesn't geometry treat of surfaces?" asked Mrs. Almond, who, as we know, was clever, smiling. "Yes; but it treats of them profoundly. Catherine and her young man are my surfaces; I have taken their measure." "You speak as if it surprised you." "It is immense; there will be a great deal to observe." "You are shockingly cold-blooded!" said Mrs. Almond. "I need to be with all this hot blood about me. Young Townsend indeed is cool; I must allow him that merit."

The Doctor had been rather disappointed at not finding his compact and comfortable little hostess surrounded in a more visible degree by the ravages of Morris Townsend's immorality; but he had said to himself that this was not because the young man had spared her, but because she had contrived to plaster up her wounds. They were aching there, behind the varnished stove, the festooned engravings, beneath her own neat little poplin bosom; and if he could only touch the tender spot, she would make a movement that would betray her. The words I have just quoted were an attempt to put his finger suddenly upon the place; and they had some of the success that he looked for. The tears sprang for a moment to Mrs. Montgomery's eyes, and she indulged in a proud little jerk of the head. "I don't know how you have found that out!" she exclaimed. "By a philosophic trick--by what they call induction. You know you have always your option of contradicting me. But kindly answer...

She confessed that she was not particularly fond of literature. Morris Townsend agreed with her that books were tiresome things; only, as he said, you had to read a good many before you found it out.

In those days in New York there were still a few altar-fires flickering in the temple of Republican simplicity, and Dr. Sloper would have been glad to see his daughter present herself, with a classic grace, as a priestess of this mild faith. It made him fairly grimace, in private, to think that a child of his should be both ugly and overdressed. For himself, he was fond of the good things of life, and he made a considerable use of them; but he had a dread of vulgarity, and even a theory that it was increasing in the society that surrounded him.

Once, when the girl was about twelve years old, he had said to her: "Try and make a clever woman of her, Lavinia; I should like her to be a clever woman." Mrs. Penniman, at this, looked thoughtful a moment. "My dear Austin," she then inquired, "do you think it is better to be clever than to be good?" "Good for what?" asked the Doctor. "You are good for nothing unless you are clever."