"Do you think I had a tear for any of them? No, no! I was nearly crying for myself, for it was really piteous to see the trash a woman of my age thought worth preserving. I sent the whole contents of the drawer to the kitchen—the servant lasses may quarrel about them."
"Was there nothing worth taking to your new home? No single thing that had a loving, or a pleasant memory?"
"Not one. The whole mess of needlework, and painted cards, toilet toys, and sham trinkets represented my existence until Dora came. It was just as useless and unsatisfying as the trash flung into the kitchen. Dora opened the gates of life for me. Poor Dora!"
"Why do you say 'poor Dora'?"
"She is unhappy, disappointed, I have sometimes thought almost frightened. She is much changed. Robert is not kind to her, and he ought to be ashamed of himself. I wonder if my intended husband will act as Robert has done?"
"Sir Thomas is much in love with you."
"Robert was much in love with Dora. See how it ends. He sits reading, or he lies asleep on the sofa the evenings he is with her—and he used to feel as if the day was not long enough to tell her how lovely and how dear she was. I suppose Sir Thomas will act in the same way."
"I do not think he will."
"He had better not."
"Oh, Christina, do not talk—do not even think of such contingencies. Women should never threaten."