If she had not been such a remarkably foolish woman, she would have known she was glad on the whole that the promise had been extorted from her.

As it was she thought she was sorry, but after a little more urging and pleading she gave up the precious valentine, and saw it devoured by the flames.

It had a Birmingham postmark, and Mrs.Melcombe heard with pleasure that Joseph would be away at least a fortnight.
Laura had wanted a little excitement, just the least amusement; and if not that, just the least recognition of her place in nature as a woman, and a young one.

At present, her imagination had not been long at work on this unpromising payer of the tribute.

If some one, whose household ways and daily English were like her own, had come forward she would soon have forgotten Joseph; for he himself, as an individual, was almost nothing to her, it was only in his having paid the tribute that his power lay.
Late in the afternoon Mr.Augustus Mortimer arrived.