It demands assuredly the straightest I can make.

I see no 'awfulness'-- I suspect none.

I'm deeply distressed," she added, "that you should do anything else." It drew again from Maggie a long look.
"You've never even imagined anything ?" "Ah, God forbid!--for it's exactly as a woman of imagination that I speak.

There's no moment of my life at which I'm not imagining something; and it's thanks to that, darling," Mrs.Assingham pursued, "that I figure the sincerity with which your husband, whom you see as viciously occupied with your stepmother, is interested, is tenderly interested, in his admirable, adorable wife." She paused a minute as to give her friend the full benefit of this--as to Maggie's measure of which, however, no sign came; and then, poor woman, haplessly, she crowned her effort.--"He wouldn't hurt a hair of your head." It had produced in Maggie, at once, and apparently in the intended form of a smile, the most extraordinary expression.

"Ah, there it is!" But her guest had already gone on.