Jemima Refuses to Be Managed It was no wonder that the lookers-on were perplexed as to the state of affairs between Jemima and Mr Farquhar, for they too were sorely puzzled themselves at the sort of relationship between them.

Was it love, or was it not?
that was the question in Mr Farquhar's mind.

He hoped it was not; he believed it was not; and yet he felt as if it were.

There was something preposterous, he thought, in a man nearly forty years of age being in love with a girl of twenty.

He had gone on reasoning through all the days of his manhood on the idea of a staid, noble-minded wife, grave and sedate, the fit companion in experience of her husband.