Pertinaciously the thought, “Zenobia is a wife; Zenobia has lived and loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly developed rose!” — irresistibly that thought drove out all other conclusions, as often as my mind reverted to the subject.

Zenobia was conscious of my observation, though not, I presume, of the point to which it led me.

“Mr. Coverdale,” said she one day, as she saw me watching her, while she arranged my gruel on the table, “I have been exposed to a great deal of eye-shot in the few years of my mixing in the world, but never, I think, to precisely such glances as you are in the habit of favoring me with.

I seem to interest you very much; and yet — or else a woman’s instinct is for once deceived —