[The March Family Trilogy by William Dean Howells]@TWC D-Link book
The March Family Trilogy

PART II
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Seemed perfectly well, and all at once she died; heart-failure, they called it.
It broke me up, and mother, here, got at me to go.

And so we're here." His voice trembled; and his eyes softened; then they flashed up, and March heard him add, in a tone that astonished him less when he looked round and saw General Triscoe advancing toward them, "I don't know what it is always makes me want to kick that man." The general lifted his hat to their group, and hoped that Mrs.Eltwin was well, and Major Eltwin better.

He did not notice their replies, but said to March, "The ladies are waiting for you in Pupp's readingroom, to go with them to the Posthof for breakfast." "Aren't you going, too ?" asked March.
"No, thank you," said the general, as if it were much finer not; "I shall breakfast at our pension." He strolled off with the air of a man who has done more than his duty.
"I don't suppose I ought to feel that way," said Eltwin, with a remorse which March suspected a reproachful pressure of his wife's hand had prompted in him.

"I reckon he means well." "Well, I don't know," March said, with a candor he could not wholly excuse.
On his way to the hotel he fancied mocking his wife for her interest in the romantic woes of her lovers, in a world where there was such real pathos as these poor old people's; but in the company of Miss Triscoe he could not give himself this pleasure.

He tried to amuse her on the way from Pupp's, with the doubt he always felt in passing the Cafe Sans-Souci, whether he should live to reach the Posthof where he meant to breakfast.


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