"No dear, that is not the reason. I should not have spoken so unguardedly."
"I might try to overcome the temptations if I were warned of their nature."
"You are a persevering child, Medoline—but still only a child in heart."
"I am over eighteen, Mrs. Flaxman. I wonder why you and Mr. Winthrop persist in making me out a child. When will I be a woman?"
"Not till your heart gets wakened."
"I wonder when that will be. Does it mean love and marriage, Mrs. Flaxman?"
"It means the former; the latter may not follow with you."
"Why not? But there, I do not want to leave you and Mr. Winthrop and Oaklands. No man could tempt me from you. But what did you mean by saying that I might love and yet not marry?"
"Because you are too true to your woman's instincts to marry any one unless it was the man you loved."
I fell into a brown study over her words, and the conversation was not again resumed.