Rhoda perused it very carefully, pausing now and then to reflect.
In this reading of her mind, Barfoot came near the truth.
No man had ever made love to her; no man, to her knowledge, had ever been tempted to do so.

In certain moods she derived satisfaction from this thought, using it to strengthen her life's purpose; having passed her thirtieth year, she might take it as a settled thing that she would never be sought in marriage, and so could shut the doors on every instinct tending to trouble her intellectual decisions.

But these instincts sometimes refused to be thus treated.

As Miss Barfoot told her, she was very young for her years, young in physique, young in emotion.

As a girl she had dreamt passionately, and the fires of her nature, though hidden beneath aggregations of moral and mental attainment, were not yet smothered.