She triumphed softly, not too obviously, in her power.

He couldn't do without her,--do what she might,--that was plain.
"Now, John," she said, "don't you think we poor women are judged rather hardly?
Men, you know, tell all sorts of lies to carry on their great politics and their ambition, and nobody thinks it so dreadful of _them_" "I _do_--I should," interposed John.
"Oh, well! _you_--you are an exception.

It is not one man in a hundred that is so good as you are.

Now, we women have only one poor little ambition,--to be pretty, to please you men; and, as soon as you know we are getting old, you don't like us.

And can you think it's so very shocking if we don't come square up to the dreadful truth about our age?
Youth and beauty is all there is to us, you know." "O Lillie! don't say so," said John, who felt the necessity of being instructive, and of improving the occasion to elevate the moral tone of his little elf.