"One or two, mother; and I got to be thinking if any one of them should ask me to marry him, and if moved by some evil destiny I were to take him, whether I should murder him, or myself, or run away with one of the others."
"Couldn't you bear with him till, according to your own theory, he would grow out of his folly?" said the father.
"Being a woman,—no. The present moment is always everything to me. When that horrid old harridan halloaed out that somebody was smoking, I thought I should have died. It was very bad just then."
"Awful!" said Mrs. Boncassen, shaking her head.
"I didn't seem to feel it much," said the father. "One doesn't look to have everything just what one wants always. If I did I should go nowhere;—but my total life would be less enjoyable. If ever you do get married, Bell, you should remember that."
"I mean to get married some day, so that I shouldn't be made love to any longer."
"I hope it will have that effect," said the father.
"Mr. Boncassen!" ejaculated the mother.
"What I say is true. I hope it will have that effect. It had with you, my dear."
"I don't know that people didn't think of me as much as of anybody else, even though I was married."