He really had so many appointments in a day that he seldom kept more than half of them, and his excuse was no polite invention.

He bowed himself out, and when he was gone Margaret felt as though she had lost a friend.
She wearied of the day--so long, so hot, and so unfortunate.

She tried a book, and then she tried to write a letter, and then she tried to think again.

It seemed to her that there was so little to think about, for she had a hopeless helpless consciousness that there was nothing to be done that she could do.

She might have written to her friends in Petersburg--of course she would do that, and make every possible representation.