She was still looking at the minister with that warm expression of impersonal interest, when, without further preliminaries, he began his halting avowal of love.
Had the poor pink rose-bush suddenly flamed into crimson she could scarcely have been more surprised.

She caught her breath with the shock of it! But shocks are quickly over.

One adjusts one's self with incredible swiftness.

A moment--and it seemed to Esther that she ought to have been expecting this.

That she ought to have known it all along.
Thousands of trifles mocked at her for her blindness, thousands of unheeded voices shrieked the truth into her opened ears.