About the 6th of that
month Edward gave the horse to young Selmes, and Nancy had
cause to believe that her aunt did not love her uncle. On the 20th
she read the account of the divorce case, which is reported in the
papers of the 18th and the two following days. On the 23rd she
had the conversation with her aunt in the hall--about marriage in
general and about her own possible marriage, her aunt's coming to
her bedroom did not occur until the 12th of November. . . .
Thus she had three weeks for introspection--for introspection
beneath gloomy skies, in that old house, rendered darker by the
fact that it lay in a hollow crowned by fir trees with their black
shadows. It was not a good situation for a girl. She began thinking
about love, she who had never before considered it as anything
other than a rather humorous, rather nonsensical matter. She
remembered chance passages in chance books--things that had not
really affected her at all at the time. She remembered someone's
love for the Princess Badrulbadour; she remembered to have heard
that love was a flame, a thirst, a withering up of the vitals--though
she did not know what the vitals were. She had a vague
recollection that love was said to render a hopeless lover's eyes
hopeless; she remembered a character in a book who was said to
have taken to drink through love; she remembered that lovers'
existences were said to be punctuated with heavy sighs.
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